→Excessive usage?: Reply Tag: Reply |
|||
(25 intermediate revisions by 13 users not shown) | |||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
{{WikiProject Edit requests}} |
|||
{{WikiProject Reference works |class=Template}} |
|||
<!-- {{Skiptotoc}} --> |
<!-- {{Skiptotoc}} --> |
||
{{Talk header<!-- |search=yes -->|disclaimer=yes|bottom=yes}} |
{{Talk header<!-- |search=yes -->|disclaimer=yes|bottom=yes|age=4|units=months|minthreadsleft=4}} |
||
{{Old AfD multi |
{{Old AfD multi |
||
<!-- 1st --> |
<!-- 1st --> |
||
Line 25: | Line 27: | ||
| minthreadsleft = 4 |
| minthreadsleft = 4 |
||
}} |
}} |
||
==Link rot?== |
|||
Can anyone tell me why bare URLs are more susceptible to [[link rot]] than prettily piped links? No - I thought not. I have re-worded the template and provided [[Template:Cleanup-link rot/why|my ideas of the real objections]]. If these changes are acceptable, I propose: |
|||
* move this template to [[template:cleanup-bare URLs]] |
|||
* add <code>bare URLs =</code> to [[template:article issues]]. |
|||
— [[User:RHaworth|RHaworth]] ([[User talk:RHaworth|Talk]] | [[special:contributions/RHaworth|contribs]]) 04:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC) |
|||
:I fully support that change. –[[User:Drilnoth|Drilnoth]] ([[User talk:Drilnoth|T]] • [[Special:Contributions/Drilnoth|C]]) 21:08, 7 March 2009 (UTC) |
|||
::It's not that a bare URL is more susceptible to link rot that a citation using {{tl|cite web}} or something similar. But the advantage of using the citation template is that you can provide title, author, publication date, publisher, a quote etc, all of which will make finding the resource a lot easier in the event that the link goes dead. I think that's the point. So by not using bare links, we can mitigate problems with link rot before they happen. That being said, I have no problem with your proposal to move the template. —<b style="border:1px solid #C5BE83;background-color:#F5DEB3;font-size:0.9em;"> [[User:LinguistAtLarge|LinguistAtLarge]] • [[User talk:LinguistAtLarge|Talk]] </b> 03:24, 23 March 2009 (UTC) |
|||
==Query== |
|||
Is there any categories or anything specific to this tag that I can use to find bare urls? It's just that I love typing out citewebs, [[User:Spongefrog|<font color="Green" face="High Tower Text">'''Lord Spongefrog'''</font>]][[User:Spongefrog/Subpage/My Barnstars|,]] [[User talk:Spongefrog#top|<font color="blue" face="High Tower Text">(I am the Czar of all Russias!)</font>]] 17:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC) |
|||
: Not really. But you can start at [[:Category:Articles with broken citations]], which has some 5-10 instances a day of {{tl|Cite web}} with a missing title (or incorrect use of the template). [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 18:12, 28 September 2009 (UTC) |
|||
:You might want to have a look at the cleanup box at [[tools:~dispenser/view/Reflinks]], let me know of any interface improvement you might like to see in the reflinks tool. — [[User:Dispenser|Dispenser]] 00:37, 29 September 2009 (UTC) |
|||
:You can use [[Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cleanup-link rot]] and I think that category of pages that transclude this template should be created. [[User:Svick|Svick]] ([[User talk:Svick|talk]]) 12:54, 11 October 2009 (UTC) |
|||
::I created [[:Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup]] that contains all articles that have this template transcluded. [[User:Svick|Svick]] ([[User talk:Svick|talk]]) 13:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC) |
|||
== Emphasis == |
|||
The message says the following data elements are important: title, date, publisher, publication, and author. I don't think that's the right list. |
|||
* Author ought to be earlier in the list than it is. |
|||
* Publication should probably be changed to a more generic term like ''web site name'' or ''work''. |
|||
* Publisher is not important ''if'' the web site is well known, and it's often unnecessary even for less well-known sites. For example, is it more important to list "Rovi Corporation" or "Allmusic", the name of the site they publish? Clearly, it's "Allmusic", and "Rovi Corporation" is unnecessary. |
|||
So, I'd propose something like this: |
|||
title, author, date, and web site name |
|||
Comments? — [[User:John Cardinal|John Cardinal]] ([[User talk:John Cardinal|talk]]) 13:54, 2 February 2010 (UTC) |
|||
:That's an improvement. But author(s) (if known) should go before title, and date (if known) should go after website name. |
|||
:Unless of course you were using an author–date system, whereupon the order would most likely be author(s) (if known), year (if known), title, website name, date within the year (if known). But I think this is unsuitable for many pages as the authorship of so much that's worth citing is unclear. -- [[User:Hoary|Hoary]] ([[User talk:Hoary|talk]]) 07:23, 15 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
== Inline cleanup-link rot? == |
|||
Is there an inline <sup>'''''[cleanup-link rot]'''''</sup> that can be used per citation? Like <sup>'''''[dead link]'''''</sup>. URL to it please!?! [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 18:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:It appears that there currently is no template for this purpose. I don't see anything in [[:Category:Inline templates]], [[:Category:Inline cleanup templates]] or [[:Category:Inline citation cleanup templates]]. I'm removing {{tl|Bare}}, {{tl|Bare URL}}, {{tl|BareURL}} and {{tl|Bareurl}}, the templates that imply a single bare link rather than multiple bare links, from [[Template:Cleanup-link rot/doc]] to discourage their use there and reserve them for possible future use for this purpose. [[User:Wbm1058|Wbm1058]] ([[User talk:Wbm1058|talk]]) 15:02, 9 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::It's risky to give an old template a new meaning. Some of those are currently in use as redirects to {{tl|Cleanup-link rot}}, and a few people may have learned them and expect them to function that way. It will be even more confusing after the proposed rename. My suggestion: leave those as they are, restoring them to the documentation, and anticipate creating new "''Bare-inline''" etc if needed. --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 14:32, 10 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
== Where is the tool? == |
|||
When I click on the words "a tool," I don't go anywhere. In puzzlement, I remain your friend, [[User:GeorgeLouis|GeorgeLouis]] ([[User talk:GeorgeLouis|talk]]) 01:48, 16 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
: Don't know what to tell you. It's a link outside Wikipedia. Surely somebody must know, but not me. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 04:25, 16 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::The tool is Reflinks - see [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks]] [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 04:07, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
Well, why is there a link that doesn't go anywhere? [[User:GeorgeLouis|GeorgeLouis]] ([[User talk:GeorgeLouis|talk]]) 07:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
: The best place to ask that question is with [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks]]. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 07:35, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::Clicking on the "a tool" link in the template works for me, but it can take 30 seconds or more for Reflinks to load, depending on the number of links that Reflinks has to process. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 14:38, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::: Heaven forbid that it take ''thirty seconds'' to improve an article. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 15:47, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::::I think it's a great tool - takes much less time to run Reflinks (and review the results before saving) than it does to create the citation templates manually. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 16:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
== Overly wordy == |
|||
There was little wrong with [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-link_rot&oldid=433870759 this revision] which warranted Debresser's reverting to a far wordier one. From what I can see, there was no discussion of this on the template talk page. The shorter version should be reinstated and worked on from there, as this template is presently a large mass of bold text which makes a relatively minor problem seem to be about as serious as {{tl|unreferenced BLP}}. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 10:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
: The shorter version left out a category. If Alpha Quadrant had only changed the text, I would not have reverted it. Even though I don't think the new text is significantly better or shorter, but it is not my habit to revert edits based on textual preferences. I usually take care to make two separate edits in such cases, one technical and one textual. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 11:47, 18 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:: So you reverted a significant improvement in the visible text due to a change in an invisible cleanup category? That's the opposite of helpful. Can I assume that you'd have no problem with restoring the text update? [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 12:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::: As I have said already. If you wonder why I reverted the edit, throwing out the child together with the water, I can tell you that I had two reasons: 1. the changes to the text weren't discussed anywhere, and who could guarantee me at the moment that they were an improvement. 2. categorising is essential in maintenance templates, and anythings that tempers with that can not be called a good edit. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 16:20, 18 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:::: From what I can see the code in question uses {{tl|ambox}}'s built-in <code>cat</code> and <code>date</code> parameters to categorise pages. It ''does'' omit one of the cleanup categories, but that appears to be deliberate: as everything in [[:Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup from June 2009]] also belongs in [[:category:articles needing cleanup from June 2009]], the latter category can be moved to the cat page as a parent category. As for "not having been discussed", neither was [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-link_rot&diff=410730819&oldid=385879889 the edit which re-bulked the template in the first place]. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 09:14, 19 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::::: Monthly categories aren't usually added to other categories, but the parent category [[:Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup]] is indeed in [[:Category:Wikipedia cleanup]]. Anyway, I was just explaining myself. I see you decided to grill me over this. I think unjustly so. Anyway, have you already changed the text? [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 17:25, 20 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:::::: I've not changed it yet, but if we've an agreement that the categorisation works as planned then I'll do so in a bit. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 12:56, 22 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::::::: Was done by editor in [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-link_rot&diff=446107495&oldid=445003564 this edit]. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 16:28, 22 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::::::::Could you please restore the link to Reflinks, as doing so doesn't increase the height of this template? I think we'll have an easier time working through the backlog if more people know about this tool. For that matter, could it be added to the template documentation too? Thanks! [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 00:22, 23 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
::::::::: I've updated the template to use a hybrid of both layout which should cover all bases. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 10:33, 23 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
=== Issues with "'''source''' if online" === |
|||
I believe "'''source''' if online", has two issues in three words: |
|||
#'''source''' is not the name of a field in any of the {{cite templates, I'm aware of (see [[WP:CT]]). The other three mentioned are such fields. '''url''' is perhaps what is meant, but why mention it, if we are only talking about bare URLs? If you want to talk about the concept of "source". You need another sentence. |
|||
#"if online" is redundant, if we are only talking about bare URLs. By definition all URLs are online (unless they have died). If we are talking about any source, WP allows cites from reliable off-line sources. |
|||
Suggested fixes? [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 03:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
=== Delete "See WP:CITE for how to format citations." === |
|||
Delete "See WP:CITE for how to format citations.", and change "use proper citations" to "<nowiki>[[WP:CT|use proper citations]]</nowiki>" ''or'' "<nowiki>[[WP:CITE|use proper citations]]</nowiki>". This makes the template shorter, and uses parallel construction for both links to WP guidelines. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 03:45, 23 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
== Bare URLs vs link rot—related but separate issues == |
|||
Bare URLs & link rot are related but separate issues. The latter is a sub-set of the former. Its solution helps keep a citation alive, when a URL has died. I'll flesh this out in the next few days, and suggest improved text. See [[WP:Link_rot#Preventing_link_rot]] until then. |
|||
I think we need only one template for both issues, as the goal is to have editors do complete citations. The template needs to be more explicit about both issues, as many editors do ''NOT'' click through to the guidelines, but just assume they understand the issue(s) from the template. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 04:01, 23 August 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:I agree with Lentower. I actually preferred the [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-link_rot&oldid=445003564 wordier version], as it covers articles like [[Eric Stoltz]], which has titles and links for references, but nothing else.—[[User:DocWatson42|DocWatson42]] ([[User talk:DocWatson42|talk]]) 03:38, 8 September 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:: [[Wikipedia:bare URLs]] includes those as examples of bare URLs, so they're still covered by the abbreviated text. [[user:thumperward|Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward)]] - [[user talk:thumperward|talk]] 10:23, 9 September 2011 (UTC) |
|||
:::Ah—thanks. I like rules, messages, etc., to be explicit, but that will do.—[[User:DocWatson42|DocWatson42]] ([[User talk:DocWatson42|talk]]) 07:22, 11 September 2011 (UTC) |
|||
* Wonderful template, and quite useful! Thanks! --[[User:Ekabhishek|Ekabhishek]]<sup>[[User talk:Ekabhishek|talk]]</sup> 09:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC) |
|||
== Usage == |
|||
How is this used? The banner said nothing until I added some info after my experience. I clicked the fix-it link in the banner I saw on a page: |
|||
*http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?page=List_of_%22Occupy%22_protest_locations&citeweb=on&overwrite=simple&limit=200 |
|||
I thought I would be sent to a tool that would request me to install some Javascript, or to do something else. I never expected to see a page that took 10 minutes to load. Good thing I waited because my mind is blown that a tool can fix 122 bare URLs so easily in an article. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_%22Occupy%22_protest_locations&action=historysubmit&diff=456002866&oldid=456001055 this diff]. |
|||
I find that most of my fellow geeks have little ability for explaining things to others concerning geekery (is that a word, it is now). I made an attempt. See the usage section of the template, [[Template:Cleanup-link rot/doc]], and [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks]]. |
|||
Something also needed to be added to the banner to clarify it. I made an attempt. --[[User:Timeshifter|'''Timeshifter''']] ([[User talk:Timeshifter|talk]]) 15:56, 17 October 2011 (UTC) |
|||
== Transclusion == |
|||
I think we need some better guidance on where this template is to be used. I've seen one editor placing this on pages where transclusion is used as a way of identifying link rot in transcluded pages. As an example, [[List of iCarly episodes]] includes the tag, even though there are no bare urls in the actual articles. Bare urls are on pages that are transcluded to List of iCarly episodes, but these have their own copy of the tag so it's redundant. A reasonable editor coming along will look at the article, see that there are no bare urls and remove the tag. I did this myself,[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_iCarly_episodes&diff=496526375&oldid=496475328] but removal of the tag was reverted twice. An editor fixing the transcluded pages will not necessarily know to look at the parent page to remove the tag because you wouldn't expect it to be on that page. I think we need some consensus to tighten the instruction one way or the other, but I think we need to specify that it should only be used on pages that actually have bare urls, although that should be obvious. --[[User:AussieLegend|AussieLegend]] ([[User talk:AussieLegend|talk]]) 09:28, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:Instead of getting into an "editwar", one could go to the transcluded page(s), fix the bare URLs there, and then remove the template. A bit more time, but it improves Wikipedia, instead of urging others to do so. And it helps the readers sooner, instead of adding another warning box to be irritated by, and read over. With the Reflinks and other tools, this often takes very little time. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 12:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:A change to this template, might be to add optional parameters, that are the link(s) to the transcluded pages. Bare URLs on an included page is such a rare case, that I'm not sure it's worth the programming. Particularly as the real problem is editors who don't see where the bare URL is. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 12:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:A template that just points to the transcluded page, with this template added there is another option. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 12:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:To explain the name of this template: beside dealing with bare URLs, this template use to deal with [[WP:Link_rot|linkrot]]. (E.g. see this version http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-link_rot&oldid=273575250.) [[Template_talk:Cleanup-link_rot#Bare_URLs_vs_link_rot.E2.80.94related_but_separate_issues|Earlier on this talk page]], I suggested having a new template for just linkrot. The consensus of editors here, have been to concentrate on bare URLs, as the Reflink tools, make it less time intensive to cure bare URLs for HTML web pages. Citations not being archived, and not using the ''|quote='', ''|archive*='', etc. parameters are much larger problems to Wikpedia over time than bare URLs. Just adding a template for [[WP:Link_rot|linkrot]] is a small part of a solution. Editor education, and getting them motivated to do full citations, spend the extra time, etc. is the hard part of a solution. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 12:50, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
::"''Instead of getting into an "editwar", one could go to the transcluded page(s), fix the bare URLs there, and then remove the template.''" Or, the person adding the template could run reflinks instead of tagging the article. after all, it's not hard to run, but there are other issues in the case I mentioned. --[[User:AussieLegend|AussieLegend]] ([[User talk:AussieLegend|talk]]) 15:22, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:::True, but that assumes the editor takes the time to learn about the tool. Though it's easy to run, it takes time to learn to run it. You could offer help to the editor. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 17:23, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
::Changing the documentation would go a long way to preventing [[WP:POINT]]y additions of the template. --[[User:AussieLegend|AussieLegend]] ([[User talk:AussieLegend|talk]]) 15:22, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:::Make some specific suggestions? Or just [[WP:BOLD]] and change the documentation? [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 17:23, 11 June 2012 (UTC) |
|||
==An user just keeps inserting false "bare URLs" tags obsessively into the articles with 0 bare URLs== |
|||
I explained what is a bare URL to the user ([[User talk:I dream of horses]]) but the user just won't stop anyway. So I give up. But maybe someone of you could do it better. --[[User:Niemti|Niemti]] ([[User talk:Niemti|talk]]) 08:30, 4 July 2012 (UTC) |
|||
:It appears that I dream of horses wants editors to "consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable", but is using a template that states "This article uses bare URLs for citations." Is there another template that states something like "This article uses incomplete citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable."? Thanks! [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 14:45, 4 July 2012 (UTC) |
|||
::There's {{t|ref expand}} for articles and {{t|full}} for in-line citations. --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 21:20, 4 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
==Requested move== |
|||
<div class="boilerplate" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 2em 0 0 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;"><!-- Template:RM top --> |
|||
:''The following discussion is an archived discussion of a [[WP:requested moves|requested move]]. <span style="color:red">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a [[Wikipedia:move review|move review]]. No further edits should be made to this section. '' |
|||
The result of the move request was: '''moved'''. No prejudice against a discussion on whether this should be merged with {{tl|ref expand}}. [[User:Jenks24|Jenks24]] ([[User talk:Jenks24|talk]]) 09:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC) |
|||
---- |
|||
[[:Template:Cleanup-link rot]] → {{no redirect|template:cleanup-bare URLs}} – Cleanup-bare URLs would more accurately describe the template.-- [[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 20:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Comment''': I have restored this to its own section. The [[#Link rot?]] section above dates from 2009, and placing it at the top of that misleadingly makes it look as if 4-year old comments are responses to this. --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 21:57, 4 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::This move request template is a continuation of the proposal and discussion above, in "[[#Link rot?|Link rot?]]".--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 22:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::Sure, but when you put it ''above'' the comments there, you made it look like they were a response to the requested move. It's better to have things in time order. We've linked to that section now, so everyone can see what was said. Regards, --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 23:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Support'''. A more descriptive name. — <span style="border:dashed #666;border-width:1px 0 0 1px">[[User:This, that and the other|This, that]]</span>, and <span style="border:dashed #666;border-width:0 1px 1px 0">[[User talk:This, that and the other|the other<small> (talk)</small>]]</span> 00:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Support''', as long as you use the properly capitalized [[Template:Cleanup-bare URLs]]. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 03:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
**Initial letters are case-insensitive. For example, [[template talk:cleanup-link rot]] links correctly. — <span style="border:dashed #666;border-width:1px 0 0 1px">[[User:This, that and the other|This, that]]</span>, and <span style="border:dashed #666;border-width:0 1px 1px 0">[[User talk:This, that and the other|the other<small> (talk)</small>]]</span> 06:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Oppose'''. The template |
|||
<!--{{Cleanup-link rot}} begin-->{{Ambox |
|||
| name = Cleanup-link rot |
|||
| subst = |
|||
| type = style |
|||
| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot |
|||
| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]] |
|||
| issue = This article '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] for [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|citations]].''' |
|||
| fix = Please consider adding [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] so that the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]]. [[Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and the [{{fullurl:tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py|page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&citeweb=on&overwrite=simple&limit=200}} Reflinks tool] are available to assist in formatting. ([[WP:REFLINKS|Reflinks documentation]]) |
|||
| date = |
|||
| cat = Articles needing cleanup |
|||
| cat2 = Articles needing link rot cleanup |
|||
| all2 = All articles needing link rot cleanup |
|||
| cat3 = Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
| all3 = All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
}}<!--{{Cleanup-link rot}} end--> |
|||
::accurately describes itself (substituted intentionally). Those preferring to use a different name are free to use one of 19 aliases, or make up their own alias. Links to the template in documentation can be [[wp:pipe|piped]] to whatever editors prefer. New name would be inconsistent with [[:Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup]]. There are more important tasks to be done. [[User:Wbm1058|Wbm1058]] ([[User talk:Wbm1058|talk]]) 18:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Weak support''': It isn't a very big deal, because good redirects exist anyway, but the proposed name is more consistent with the documneted purpose of this template. --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 09:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Weak oppose''' per Wbm1058. Template names matter so little, and there are such extensive redirects, that this is unnecessary. --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 18:17, 22 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::Template names do matter and they should describe the template. This template isn't about link rot and no longer even mentions link rot.--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 20:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::I didn't say they ''didn't'' matter, of course; only that they matter ''little''. If a name isn't misleading or ambiguous, the effort of moving the template is unlikely to be worth it. --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 20:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::The name is misleading. Some editors are adding it to articles that don't have any bare URLs. Is there a big effort required to move the template?--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 19:14, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::Do you have diffs for the editors misusing the template? --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 19:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::::Yes. Here's one:[[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ray_Lewis&diff=prev&oldid=536503832]]--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 20:25, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::::FYI that link shows six bare URLs that I count. [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva|talk]]) 22:57, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::::::I don't see any bare URLs. Can you point them out?--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 23:17, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::::::Hm. Yeah, I wouldn't've added it there. As I mentioned in the section above, {{t|ref expand}} or {{t|full}} would've been more appropriate there. But that doesn't mean this was wrong, per se. There's still the same issue going on—yeah, you could google the title and probably find those refs, but encouraging inclusion of parameters like publisher and author makes that easier work. My question for you, SaskatchewanSenator, is do you think that editor wouldn't've added the template if it had been renamed? --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 23:07, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::::::References 5, 8, 9, 23, 24, 25 have a visible URL, but are not considered a "bare URL" per the definition and examples at[[Template:Cleanup-link rot#What is a bare URL?]] [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 02:09, 1 March 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Support''' or redirect to {{tl|Ref expand}}. I just use this and was somewhat confused by the name. [[User:Vegaswikian|Vegaswikian]] ([[User talk:Vegaswikian|talk]]) 03:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*'''Support''' - along with Vegaswikian, I was also confused by the current name. [[User:Arbitrarily0|<span style='color:black'><b><u><i><big>A</big>rbitrarily<big>0</big></i></u></b></span>]] <sup><b>([[User talk:Arbitrarily0|<span style="font-variant: small-caps; color:#FF4500;">talk</span>]])</b></sup> 16:14, 9 March 2013 (UTC) |
|||
===Discussion=== |
|||
This template already has 19 redirects, can't we pick one of those? There are 4509 transclusions, here are the transclusion counts for each redirect. Redirects are cheap. Not sure I see the point of taking trouble to move it, but [[link rot]] does make me think of {{tl|dead link}}s more than bare links. [[User:Wbm1058|Wbm1058]] ([[User talk:Wbm1058|talk]]) 03:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
{{div col|colwidth=20em}} |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare}} |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare links}} • 97 |
|||
* {{Tl|Barelinks}} • 197 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare references}} |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare refs}} • 1 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare URL}} • 28 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare URLs}} • 70 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare urls}} • 119 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bareurl}} |
|||
* {{Tl|Bareurls}}• 198 |
|||
* {{Tl|BareURL}} |
|||
* {{Tl|BareURLs}} • 2 |
|||
* {{Tl|Bare-URLs}} • 1 |
|||
* {{Tl|Cleanup link rot}} • 1 |
|||
* {{Tl|Cleanup link-rot}} • 3 |
|||
* {{Tl|Cleanup-link-rot}} |
|||
* {{Tl|Cleanup-linkrot}} • 257 |
|||
* {{Tl|Link rot}} • 133 |
|||
* {{Tl|Linkrot}} • 862 |
|||
{{div col end}} |
|||
:The word "Cleanup" does make it clearer that work needs to be done to solve a problem, and "bare URLs" is clearer than "link rot". [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 03:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:I agree that link rot seems more closely related to dead links. Why not change the link rot redirects to something like {{tl|Dead link header}} or something similar?--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 12:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::{{tl|Dead link header}} applies to sections rather than whole articles, but such a change could be misleading anyway, as these links don't have to be dead yet, just at risk of becoming so. --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 14:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::But identifying this template with link rot is misleading. Bare URLs have no more risk of becoming dead than full citations. Editors are placing this template in articles that have link rot, but no bare URLs.--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 19:26, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::Now I'm confused. Which of the many templates mentioned in this discussion are you referring to as "this template"? When you say articles "have link rot", do you mean that they have dead links, that they have unarchived links, or what? --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 19:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::I was referring to the Cleanup-link rot template. I expect some of the redirects to this template that are variations of the words "link rot" are also being added to articles that have link rot, but no bare URLs. When I say articles "[[WP:LINKROT|have link rot,]]" I mean the articles' external links no longer link to the intended material and have not been repaired with links to archived versions.--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 21:53, 7 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::::Thanks, now I understand. I see ''Cleanup-link rot'' quite a lot on GOCE drives, and the cases I've seen always meant bare URLs. Of course, maybe some of those URLs become dead links before I see them, and maybe some people use ''Cleanup-link rot'' when they see dead links, but its documentation is about bare URLs, and I think that's the most common use. So I think the move you porposed is the right one, and cases it was used to signal actualy dead links should be picked up on an individual basis (or just fixed :)) Heading over to support the RM now. --[[User:Stfg|Stfg]] ([[User talk:Stfg|talk]]) 09:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::::[[:Category:Articles needing link rot cleanup]] has a huge backlog—over 4,000 articles. You could go through [[WP:categories for discussion]] procedures to rename it and its sub-cats to something like [[:Category:Articles needing bare URL cleanup]], but wouldn't it be a more productive use of time to just work on clearing the backlog? [[User:Wbm1058|Wbm1058]] ([[User talk:Wbm1058|talk]]) 17:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
{{outdent}}This template keeps evolving from what it was originally. Different groups of editors have come and gone. Each with their own POV of what it should be used for, and how it should be worded. If someone really wants to fix this, I suggest you work through the page history, and come up with a proposal covering all reasonable options. I suspect some of the templates listed at the start of this section will end up pointing at new templates. |
|||
These days, with the Reflinks tool, link rot is a worse problem that bare URLs. |
|||
Fixing dead links take alot more work: checking for a changed URL on the dead link's web sight, checking the archive sites, finding an alternate citation. etc. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 01:35, 11 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:I agree, link rot is a more serious problem. What new templates are you thinking of?--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 06:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::Which ones do you think are needed? [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 00:18, 20 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::I don't know of any that are needed. I suppose we could create a dead links/link rot article template but I'm not sure how useful that would be.--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 01:15, 20 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::::No creation is necessary. Just use one of the earlier versions of this template that actually spoke to link-rot, instead of bare URLs, and switch the redirects as appropriate. I suggest people actually look back through the template page history. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 15:07, 24 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::I did look back and didn't see any versions that weren't about bare URLs. Can you please link to one?--[[User:SaskatchewanSenator|SaskatchewanSenator]] ([[User talk:SaskatchewanSenator|talk]]) 20:39, 24 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
*When I really think about it, this template is arguably redundant to (just a more specific version of) {{t|ref expand}}. Perhaps a merge would be appropriate. --[[User:BDD|BDD]] ([[User talk:BDD|talk]]) 23:09, 28 February 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:''The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a [[WP:RM|requested move]]. <span style="color:red">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a [[WP:move review|move review]]. No further edits should be made to this section.''</div><!-- Template:RM bottom --> |
|||
== Bare linkname(s) == |
|||
This template message recommends and automatically provides Reflinks for solution of the problem it flags. The documentation [[User: Dispenser/Reflinks]] says that it handles bare linknames --"plain links (where the reference is a link and a title)"-- as well as bare URLs and bare numerals, which suggests that bare linknames are also a serious problem. But that is buried in the Reflinks documentation and not hinted by the template message. |
|||
The template message may support revisions such as this one in the [[Joe Haldeman]] biography today, [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joe_Haldeman&diff=552901464&oldid=548586971 literally two revisions by one editor]. Certainly it supports the edit summary, although that happens to be erroneous because one bare URL remains, now ref #12. |
|||
I created the redirect {{tl|bare linkname}}, which I may remember to use when the article does not literally include any bare URL --as the example did and does. (Template {{tl|plain link}} has a wholly different function.) |
|||
This editor does a lot of such work, often using Reflinks. I tried to explain the problem with bare linkname/plain links and summary "Bare links issue appears resolved", [[User talk:Khazar2#Template {bare URL} and siblings]]. |
|||
Perhaps the template message should specify "bare URLs, numerals, or titles". --[[User:P64|P64]] ([[User talk:P64|talk]]) 17:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:Sorry for missing #12. I'll go back and fill it now. Reflinks hadn't picked it up and I didn't see it on a visual double-check. |
|||
:To answer the broader complaint, though, I disagree that the tag should be expanded to include instances where an article title is given as well. As with any Wikipedia tag, there's already far too many articles with this tag and not enough editors to fix them--a backlog of more than 5000, dating to mid-2011. P64's proposal would probably at least double the number of articles this template would be applicable to, and further encourage the lazy practice of tagging articles to get other volunteers to fix simple problems a tagger unwilling to fix herself. Cleanup templates are useful only if there are editors willing to tackle the backlog and actually cleanup (which, given our two-year backlog, there clearly aren't); otherwise, they're just ugly noise on the page. |
|||
:In this particular case, I'm willing to add a redundant File 770 to the citation identify the site's name, as P64 suggested on my talk page--though personally I think that the URL file770.com already suggests this quite clearly. -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 18:12, 30 April 2013 (UTC) |
|||
== Suggest adding "if the link becomes broken" == |
|||
I just came across this template for the first time in an article. When I read the part, "Please consider adding [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] so that the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]]", I didn't understand why citations that were just bare links were any less verifiable than full citations. After a little digging I found that the reason was link rot, since a citation that is only a bare link may no longer be useful for verifiability if it becomes broken, whereas a full citation is still useful if the link is broken. To clarify this, I suggest adding the phrase "if the link becomes broken" so that the sentence becomes, |
|||
:"Please consider adding [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] so that the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] if the link becomes broken." |
|||
--[[User:Bob K31416|Bob K31416]] ([[User talk:Bob K31416|talk]]) 14:14, 26 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
: How is a full citation more verifiable if the link is broken? [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 17:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::Because it allows you search by other information like article title. For example, if a link is simply washingtonpost.com/af322f3k32, that reference is lost if the Wash Post rearranges their site, as they recently did. But with an article title, the article can still be found at its new home. -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 17:54, 27 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::: Still, a full citation doesn't guarantee that it will be possible to verify the citation later. Nor does a bare URL necessarily make this impossible. E.g. the link might be archived (and likely is). In view of these two facts, I think the present text is too strongly worded. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 18:03, 27 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::: Every element of a full citation (title, author, publisher, publ date) makes use of the the cited resource easier to replicate, thus the article more verifiable if resource does provide verification. The elements also contributes to assessment of the sources cited, and thus of the article credibility. Every element helps inform people who read the reference, rather than follow its links if any. That includes people who consult the article as printed on paper, of course, but it isn't limited to them. |
|||
:::: The text isn't too strong but it is partly beside the point and it is elliptical in its brevity. However, more than half the previous discussion of this template concerns how much explanation is appropriate in the template display. These templates are intrusive. There may be a consensus "when in doubt, say less" alongside the inconvenient fact "always in doubt". --[[User:P64|P64]] ([[User talk:P64|talk]]) 20:53, 27 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
For comparison, here is an older version[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-bare_URLs&oldid=450159830] which I would have understood better than the current version on the template page because it has the phrases "which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]" and "in the future." |
|||
:This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] for [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|citations]], which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]'''. Please add [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|information on the author and source]], so that the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] in the future. The [http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&citeweb=on&overwrite=simple&limit=200 "Reflinks" tool] can be used to partially automate this task. |
|||
Seems like over time, editors trimmed the wording so that it was still clear to them, but wasn't clear to others who hadn't worked on it. This is a not too uncommon a mistake where writers fail to see their product through the eyes of their potential audience. --[[User:Bob K31416|Bob K31416]] ([[User talk:Bob K31416|talk]]) 21:19, 27 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
Here's what is currently the first sentence of the template, |
|||
:"This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] for [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|citations]].'''" |
|||
Instead of my original proposal, suggest adding the clarifying phrase "which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]", which was removed from a previous version of this template. Also, suggest not having the bold font since it doesn't work well because there is a mix of blue and black characters. Here's the result. |
|||
:This {{{1|article}}} uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] for [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|citations]], which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]. |
|||
The full text of the template would look like this. |
|||
:This {{{1|article}}} uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]] for [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|citations]], which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]. Please consider adding [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] so that the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]]. [[Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and the [{{fullurl:tools:~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py|page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&citeweb=on&overwrite=simple&limit=200}} Reflinks tool] are available to assist in formatting. ([[WP:REFLINKS|Reflinks documentation]]) |
|||
BTW, if anyone objects and doesn't feel any change is needed, and there is no support for the change or any other change, I'll just go away. But if there are no objections, I'll make the edit. --[[User:Bob K31416|Bob K31416]] ([[User talk:Bob K31416|talk]]) 17:04, 29 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
: Sounds good to me. But I'd give it two days to wait and see if there are any objections. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 18:36, 29 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
::Sounds good to me too. -- [[User:Khazar2|Khazar2]] ([[User talk:Khazar2|talk]]) 18:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::'''Oppose''' Link rot would be much less of a problem, if each citation included a quote from the reference. This is best done by the editor who initially adds the citation, & is next to impossible after a link goes dead & is unarchived, that is, when it's broken. |
|||
:::It is far less work, than checking all the archive sites, then trying to find an alternative source, when a link goes broken. |
|||
:::Adding quotes also let's the reader quickly find the interesting part of a very long reference, and increases [[WP:V]]. [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower|talk]]) 19:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::: @Lentower How is all that a reason to oppose adding the words "which may be threatened by [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]]"? [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 22:25, 29 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
:::::I just made the edit per consensus. --[[User:Bob K31416|Bob K31416]] ([[User talk:Bob K31416|talk]]) 21:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC) |
|||
== Does this tag add any value to readers? == |
|||
It certainly makes an article uglier, and noisier, and more confusing to readers not versed in WP argot, but does it add any positive value to anyone who is just a reader, not an editor? If not, then why ought it to be visible to readers? --[[User:Hobbes Goodyear|Hobbes Goodyear]] ([[User talk:Hobbes Goodyear|talk]]) 19:05, 15 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
: Wikipedia holds that every reader is a potential editor. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 19:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:: The point being? The worse we make this encyclopedia, the more we encourage readers to become editors? Are we that near to perfection? I have been more active lately, but still, I dunno. Not ready to declare victory just yet. :) --[[User:Hobbes Goodyear|Hobbes Goodyear]] ([[User talk:Hobbes Goodyear|talk]]) 02:00, 16 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::: The point being that the tag is not only for editors, but for all readers, because all readers are potential editors. In addition, I don't think the tag, or any other maintenance tag, makes the article ugly or noisy or confusing. Nor does the community think so. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 21:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:A reader who sees this tag knows that some of the references used for any inline citations may be out of date (if websites have gone down, moved, etc.). I found that very helpful when I was only a reader. [[User:Millahnna|Millahnna]] ([[User talk:Millahnna|talk]]) 22:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
== Reflinks may be going away == |
|||
FYI - Reflinks may be going away - see [[User:Dispenser/Toolserver migration]]. I hope this doesn't happen, but if it does, we'll need to change the verbiage of this template. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 02:19, 23 June 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:Reflinks is gone now, so I've removed mention of it from the template. :-( [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 00:19, 1 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
===Reflinks is back=== |
|||
Should the link be changed to something like [https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Reflinks] ? (its broken as it is now) [[User:Christian75|Christian75]] ([[User talk:Christian75|talk]]) 19:12, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Reflinks is broken too. :-( [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 21:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::{{ping|Christian75}} Reflinks is back up, so I've fixed the link as you suggested. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 22:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:::E.g. http://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?page=Open_Source_Initiative&client=script&citeweb=on&overwrite=&limit=20&lang=en is what's working for me. I got there by clicking the '''Reflinks''' link that I installed the standard way, so it's on all en.WP pages in my browser. — [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower#top|talk]]) 22:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::::{{ping|Lentower}} I changed the template {{diff|Template%3ACleanup-bare_URLs|615490771|610275197|like this}}. Is that OK with you? [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 22:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:::::{{ping|Lentower}} Correction: I changed the template {{diff|Template%3ACleanup-bare_URLs|615495212|610275197|like this}}. [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 22:47, 3 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::::::{{ping|GoingBatty}} Thanks. Works just fine. — [[User:Lentower|Lentower]] ([[User talk:Lentower#top|talk]]) 03:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC) |
|||
== Reflinks is down again == |
|||
*Reflinks has been taken down again. I really hope that we can get it back somehow! --[[User:Jax 0677|Jax 0677]] ([[User talk:Jax 0677|talk]]) 07:04, 30 August 2014 (UTC) |
|||
== "New" Reflinks == |
|||
A new program to semi-automatically fill out references, possibly "beta", is available at [https://tools.wmflabs.org/fengtools/reflinks/ "Fengtools reflinks"]. (It is different from the program created by [[User:Dispenser]]). --[[User:Zfish118|Zfish118]] ([[User_talk:Zfish118|talk)]] 01:02, 12 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
*''' Reply '''- Amen! --[[User:Jax 0677|Jax 0677]] ([[User talk:Jax 0677|talk]]) 01:56, 12 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
== Reflinks rewrite == |
|||
I propose that we add [[User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks|my Reflinks rewrite]] into this template. It still has some bugs (see [[User talk:Zhaofeng Li]]), but it's ready for use. Any thoughts on this? Thanks. |
|||
P.S. Proposed change: ''...<nowiki>and the [https://tools.wmflabs.org/fengtools/reflinks/result.php?nofixcplain=y&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Reflinks tool] are available to assist in formatting. ([[User:Zhaofeng Li/Reflinks|Reflinks documentation]])</nowiki>'' |
|||
<span style="text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk...]] [[Special:Contributions/Zhaofeng Li|contribs...]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> 15:05, 26 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:{{ping|Zhaofeng Li}} I think you have done a great job creating a new tool and being responsive to bug reports and suggestions. I support your proposal as long as you also update [[Template:Cleanup-bare URLs/doc#How to use]] as well. Thanks! [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 23:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:: Yeah, will certainly do that. <span style="text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk...]] [[Special:Contributions/Zhaofeng Li|contribs...]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> 23:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::: {{done}} Since no one has objected to this change, I've [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-bare_URLs&diff=627658527&oldid=624476482 added the tool] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Cleanup-bare_URLs/doc&diff=627659997&oldid=627535502 updated the documentation]. <span style="text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk...]] [[Special:Contributions/Zhaofeng Li|contribs...]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> 09:56, 30 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:::: {{ping|GoingBatty}} Could you check if everything is okay here? <span style="text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk...]] [[Special:Contributions/Zhaofeng Li|contribs...]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> 09:56, 30 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
:::::{{ping|Zhaofeng Li}} Looks good to me. Have you let [[User:Ohconfucius|Ohconfucius]] know that you're referencing his wonderful tools in the documentation? [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 20:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
::::::Oh right, I forgot it. I've left a message on his/her talk page, and your comment should have notified them too. {{smiley}} <span style="text-shadow: 0.1em 0.1em 0.2em black">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small><nowiki>[</nowiki>[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk...]] [[Special:Contributions/Zhaofeng Li|contribs...]]<nowiki>]</nowiki></small> 23:17, 30 September 2014 (UTC) |
|||
== New name for script == |
|||
The Reflinks tool has been renamed to Refill, but I'm not sure how to fix the template. The template goes to the old Reflinks page right now, instead of the Refill page.[[User:David O. Johnson|David O. Johnson]] ([[User talk:David O. Johnson|talk]]) 22:41, 4 March 2015 (UTC) |
|||
:{{ping|David O. Johnson}} If appears that the template links to the reFill tool, but still refers to it as "Reflinks". There multiple ways to fix the template: |
|||
:#Update the template to point to [[User:Dispenser|Dispenser's]] original Reflinks tool and [[WP:REFLINKS|documentation]] |
|||
:#Update the template to make it clear the links go to [[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li's]] reFill tool and [[User:Zhaofeng Li/reFill|documentation]] |
|||
:#Update the template to point to both tools. |
|||
:How should we make this decision? [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty|talk]]) 04:33, 5 March 2015 (UTC) |
|||
::Just a note that I've done #2. <span style="text-shadow:.1em .1em .2em #000">[[User:Zhaofeng Li|Zhaofeng Li]]</span> <small>[[[User talk:Zhaofeng Li|talk]] ♦ [[Special:Contribs/Zhaofeng Li|contribs]]]</small> 06:55, 5 March 2015 (UTC) |
|||
== VisualEditor guidance == |
|||
In addition to ReFill, VisualEditor offers a one-click option to fix bare URL references (https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T114564). This should probably be mentioned in this template. [[User:ESanders (WMF)|ESanders (WMF)]] ([[User talk:ESanders (WMF)|talk]]) 13:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC) |
|||
== Cleanup tags == |
|||
Hi, |
|||
The cleanup backlog, as probably everyone knows, is massive, and [[:Category:Articles needing cleanup from February 2017|this month in particular]] seems to be going mad, but when I'm trying to clear through the backlog it seems like ''most'' of them these days are from this template. So my question is, does this template really need to add tagged articles to the general cleanup list? My understanding of the cleanup category is that it's mostly for article with serious formatting/presentation/content issues that affect the reader. To be honest the bare url articles are really clogging it up and getting in the way of finding the articles that need real cleanup. I totally acknowledge that bare URLs are a serious issue for the encyclopaedia, but we don't add, say, articles tagged with "More footnotes" template to the cleanup backlog, which I would say are similar to this template, ie. concerned with the sanctity of the referencing system, rather than the usefulness as an article. What does anyone else think? Has this come up before? What is the rationale for adding them to the cleanup list? [[User:Jdcooper|Jdcooper]] ([[User talk:Jdcooper|talk]]) 01:40, 12 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
: The problem is basically technical, and can be fixed almost automatically. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 15:04, 12 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
:: Sorry, how do you mean? [[User:Jdcooper|Jdcooper]] ([[User talk:Jdcooper|talk]]) 18:13, 12 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
::: The type of tag to include in "Articles needing cleanup" should be tags of a technical nature that can easily be fixed, as opposed to serious issues that need research and serious work to fix. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 23:19, 12 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
:Ok I get that, but it's breaking the backlog. Out of 755 pages listed as needing cleanup since February 2017, 545 of them are bare urls. Whether or not it is easy to fix, isn't it a referencing issue, so would make more sense to list in [[:Category:Pages with reference errors]]? [[User:Jdcooper|Jdcooper]] ([[User talk:Jdcooper|talk]]) 13:55, 22 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
:: I think the reason is that a bare URL is not an ''error'' in the reference, rather a stylistic issue. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 16:59, 22 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
::: Ok maybe wrong category, but you get my point. It's not a stylistic issue though, it makes zero difference to the reader. It's a reference issue because having no data jeopardises the reference in the long term. [[User:Jdcooper|Jdcooper]] ([[User talk:Jdcooper|talk]]) 21:37, 22 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
:::: Let's try and seek consensus whether this is a stylistic or reference issue, and decide the question based on that. [[User:Debresser|Debresser]] ([[User talk:Debresser|talk]]) 05:17, 23 February 2017 (UTC) |
|||
== InternetArchiveBot archives pages automatically - Awesome tool to combat linkrot == |
|||
Hi everybody, Thank you for combatting link rot!! Here's an exciting update: Tagging a page to recommend that all web sources be archived and include the archiving info in the citation is no longer necessary: Instead of tagging the page, you might as well use that same amount of time to use this webarchiving tool: https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=runbotqueue (and this is the corresponding user page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:InternetArchiveBot). Just enter the name of the article, and it will do all the archiving and editing for you, to have most of the web sources be archived and properly cited. No need for time-consuming manual archiving and citing of it! This bot is awesome, and I just want to help promote it. Cheers.([[User talk:Al83tito|talk]]) [[user:Al83tito|user:Al83tito]] 02:32, 06 July 2017 (UTC) |
|||
== Hijacking of this template for reFill usage only == |
|||
Hi, the original purpose of this template was to ask for assistance to flesh out bare urls in articles in order to avoid link rot. However, in November 2014 the text was reworded to imply reFill usage. |
|||
Meanwhile we have editors who not only refuse to fix bare urls if the citations are not listed in the References section, but in Bibliography, Further reading etc. because reFill, apparently, can't be used for them for some odd reason - but they even edit-war over it asserting this template would be only for reFill use and only for References located in Reference sections. I find this problematic because with this attitude many bare urls won't get fixed and the template helps to create link rot rather than remove it. |
|||
Also, but that's a different topic, the quality of refilled citations is often extremely bad with incorrect titles, mixed up journal, work and website parameters, forenames listed in author-last and articles listed in author-first parameters. Apparently, reFill users use the tool without even checking the contents. |
|||
--[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 12:46, 5 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
:{{ping|Matthiaspaul}} Can you give an example? The tool is far from perfect (but who is?) and I realise there has a lot of work to be done to it, but Rome has not been built in an afternoon. You might put your question/remark forward to [[User talk:Zhaofeng Li]]. Thank you for your time. [[User:Lotje|Lotje]] ([[User talk:Lotje|talk]]) 14:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
:: Hi Lotje, the two incidents that come to my mind right now are: |
|||
::* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Group_coded_recording&type=revision&diff=843316154&oldid=843301397 |
|||
::* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Reichmann&type=revision&diff=821347220&oldid=821338698 |
|||
:: Note that I asked for assistance to flesh out the bare urls to avoid link rot. I did ''not'' ask for assistance by a tool (although I don't mind if a tool is used for as long as the result makes sense), I did not ask for assistance of editors who only want to assist using reFill. The other editor apparently assumes this template is only for those references in References sections which can be fixed by reFill. (For completely screwed-up reFill examples I'll have to dig deeper into old edits, as I have meanwhile stopped using the linkrot template and in most cases have silently cleaned up after other editors' reFill usage.) --[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 14:59, 5 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
::: By far not the worst example, but here is one where reFill created |first=Arm |last=Ltd. parameters instead of using |publisher= (this is a reoccuring pattern), and the contents of some of the other parameters is mostly meaningless as well: |
|||
:::* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HP_49%2F50_series&type=revision&diff=814639497&oldid=814633749 |
|||
::: --[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 17:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
:Previous changes to the wording of this template occurred when reFill was created and Reflinks went away. Reflinks is now available again, and there may be other tools available. Therefore, I propose a change from "Several templates and the reFill tool are available to assist in formatting." to "Several templates and tools may assist in formatting." <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:GoingBatty|GoingBatty]] ([[User talk:GoingBatty#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/GoingBatty|contribs]]) 18:14, 5 July 2018 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot--> |
|||
:: Yes, I support that. I even would go a bit further and remove the "for citations" from the head line "This article uses bare URLs [for citations], which may be threatened by link rot." because it is interpreted by some editors as if ''only'' bare URLs in the "References" section should be fixed, instead of also fixing them elsewhere like in "Bibliography", "Further reading" etc. |
|||
:: Instead of removing it, we could also change it to read "bare URLs as, for example, in citations". |
|||
:: On a sidenote, I have received an astonishing high number of "Thanks" for my post above - wow, that's encouraging, thank you for that, but if possible, please voice your opinion here in this thread so we can come to a broader picture. |
|||
:: --[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 09:57, 6 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
::: {{Ping|Matthiaspaul}}, first of all, thank you for taking a closer look at the ReFill tool. It is great to see things are moving forward with the tool. May I ask you to take a look at [[HP 49/50 series]] and tell me what in your opinion should be done with the bare urls? Thank you for your time. [[User:Lotje|Lotje]] ([[User talk:Lotje|talk]]) 13:50, 6 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
:::: I don't use reFill, but have meanwhile fixed the bare URLs manually. However, I don't mind if other editors use reFill or other tools, for as long as they don't disturb the community effort to fight link rot. But some editors seem to be following different agendas - whatever their motives, what they do is counter-productive to fighting link rot: |
|||
:::: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Power%E2%80%93delay_product&type=revision&diff=849696967&oldid=849696706 |
|||
:::: Very annoying. |
|||
:::: --[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 03:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
Somehow I was tagged in this post, I'm not sure how. The tool won't fix bare url's unless they have <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> tags around them. It also won't touch dead urls or PDFs. Some editing is needed post use, but it's usually minimal.--<span style="text-shadow:#FFD700 0.2em 0.2em 0.2em">[[User:Auric|<span style="color: #FC3700;">'''Auric'''</span>]] [[User talk:Auric|<span style="color: #0C0F00;">''talk''</span>]]</span> 20:59, 6 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
: I think you were tagged because one of the posts in this thread accidently transcluded another editor's talk page instead of only linking to it. |
|||
: Thanks for demonstrating that the tool can be put to good use even for citations which are not defined inline. |
|||
: --[[User:Matthiaspaul|Matthiaspaul]] ([[User talk:Matthiaspaul|talk]]) 03:42, 11 July 2018 (UTC) |
|||
== There is a bot to add this template == |
|||
..currently in Request for Approval at [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/GreenC bot 16]]. -- [[User:GreenC|<span style="color: #006A4E;">'''Green'''</span>]][[User talk:GreenC|<span style="color: #093;">'''C'''</span>]] 13:47, 6 May 2019 (UTC) |
|||
:The bot is now active at [[Template:Cleanup bare URLs/bot]] and ready for anyone who wants to run it! -- [[User:GreenC|<span style="color: #006A4E;">'''Green'''</span>]][[User talk:GreenC|<span style="color: #093;">'''C'''</span>]] 13:53, 17 May 2019 (UTC) |
|||
The bot [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests_for_approval/GreenC_bot_16|is approved]] and now officially active. This is the first bot of this kind on Wikipedia AFAIK where editors can enable a bot through a Wikipedia page. If there are other maintenance templates that could benefit from a similar system this might be applicable let me know. Many thanks to {{U|MarnetteD}} for shepherding it through the trial period running tests and clearing pages of bare links. Also pinging {{U|Steel1943}} as you asked to be notified when it was done. -- [[User:GreenC|<span style="color: #006A4E;">'''Green'''</span>]][[User talk:GreenC|<span style="color: #093;">'''C'''</span>]] 14:16, 25 May 2019 (UTC) |
|||
== Version for use in a section == |
|||
Is there a reason why the current template cannot be used somewhere other than the top of the article page? In many cases, it is not applicable to the whole article, but adding {{tl|Bare URL inline}} to each occurrence produces too many tags. A template at the beginning of the appropriate section or a references/citations/notes section should be sufficient; if necessary, an alternative wording may be developed "This '''section''' uses bare urls{{nbsp}}..." or "This article '''contains some''' bare urls{{nbsp}}..." —[[User:Ojorojo|Ojorojo]] ([[User talk:Ojorojo|talk]]) 14:11, 31 July 2020 (UTC) |
|||
:There is a version that gets used in specific sections of articles but, for those of us who work on fixing bare urls, using the regular template at the top of the article is preferable. Hunting for them in other parts of the article is time consuming and adds to the work load in an unnecessary fashion. The group of editors who work fixing bare urls monitor the category the template creates regularly and they are usually fixed within a few hours. Anything that is done to make fixing bare urls proceed more smoothly is always appreciated. [[User:MarnetteD|MarnetteD]]|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]] 18:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC) |
|||
== External links == |
|||
Could we please have a version of this template which can be used for bare URLs in External links? I'd tagged an article but the tag was [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chiyo_Bhanjyang&type=revision&diff=1004643274&oldid=1004604547 removed] on the accurate grounds that "those are not cites". Yes, they're not cites, but they are still bare URLs in an article which ought to be converted into properly formatted links. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 17:23, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
:{{u|PamD}} AFAIK the only way to have refill or reflinks format EL's is to put them inside <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki> tags. Now they can also be done manually, one at a time - for example [urladdress information] or <nowiki>[http://getjackdempsey.com Dempsey/Goldstein Music Site]</nowiki>. Regards. [[User:MarnetteD|MarnetteD]]|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]] 17:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
::Another possibility is to list an article with bare ELs at [[Wikipedia:Cleanup]]. Maybe the wikignomes that work there would like to take on that task. I don't know that for sure but it is a possibility. [[User:MarnetteD|MarnetteD]]|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]] 17:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
::{{ping|MarnetteD}} Are you saying that this maintenance tag is only for use in cases where a bot can do the work, not for tagging a fault which could be worked on by a human editor? In which case we surely need another tag and maintenance category, rather than just leave Bare URLs lying around in articles. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 17:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
:::Yes this is for dealing with bare url as references not ELs. [[User:MarnetteD|MarnetteD]]|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]] 17:51, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
*I restate my original request, then: Could we have a version of this template, or a new template, which will allow editors to tag bare URLS which are not refs? [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 18:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
:{{ping|User:matthiaspaul}} I think you were posting on the same topic above. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 18:10, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
::Jeepers I had a brain freeze this morning - refill will format els in the same way that manual formatting works. I just ran it on the article in question. It does not put them in a cite template as they are not references. If that is what you are aiming for you will need to ask at a village pump since there are is no one who maintains the tools has this page on their watchlist. [[User:MarnetteD|MarnetteD]]|[[User talk:MarnetteD|Talk]] 18:53, 3 February 2021 (UTC) |
|||
== Excessive usage? == |
== Excessive usage? == |
||
Line 526: | Line 115: | ||
::::::All this time I'm spending talking here is time I could be using to work on BareRefBot and similar. So this will probably be my last response. |
::::::All this time I'm spending talking here is time I could be using to work on BareRefBot and similar. So this will probably be my last response. |
||
::::::@[[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]], you have every right to hold your opinions. If you want to continue using bare URLs, I will respect your decision. No one will stop you from adding bare URLs to articles, if that's what you want to do. At the same time, respect should be given to the people that fill in the bare refs, because while you say a bare ref is better than no ref, I think we are all in agreement that a non bare ref is better than a bare ref. We did not approach you to stop using Bare URLs, you approached us to stop filling Bare URLs. [[User:Rlink2|Rlink2]] ([[User talk:Rlink2|talk]]) 02:14, 6 April 2022 (UTC) |
::::::@[[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]], you have every right to hold your opinions. If you want to continue using bare URLs, I will respect your decision. No one will stop you from adding bare URLs to articles, if that's what you want to do. At the same time, respect should be given to the people that fill in the bare refs, because while you say a bare ref is better than no ref, I think we are all in agreement that a non bare ref is better than a bare ref. We did not approach you to stop using Bare URLs, you approached us to stop filling Bare URLs. [[User:Rlink2|Rlink2]] ([[User talk:Rlink2|talk]]) 02:14, 6 April 2022 (UTC) |
||
::::::: I am certainly not stopping anyone from filling bare URLs, or trying to. I did ask the question whether it was necessary to involve highly public banners in that work, since it doesn't make sense to me to first welcome the contributions only to then slap a big banner on them. I still think nothing good will come out of the present attempt to making bare URLs out to be some kind of bogeyman, and I don't see where BHG has demonstrated the need to go about it this way. Maybe the (worthy) work could be done in a less conspicuous manner, that is more in the spirit of what I can read over at Bare URLs? [[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]] ([[User talk:CapnZapp|talk]]) 07:19, 6 April 2022 (UTC) |
|||
:::::::: The banners are fine: there is no harm in reminding editors that bare URL refs are below the expected standard and should be improved for the benefit of current and future readers of the article, and acknowledging to readers that this article is sub-optimal in that regard. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 07:25, 6 April 2022 (UTC) |
|||
::::::::@[[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]] writes {{tq|I still think nothing good will come out of the present attempt to making bare URLs out to be some kind of bogeyman|q=y}}. |
|||
::::::::Yet more hyperbolic nonsense. |
|||
::::::::# See [[WP:Cleanup tags]]: the tags are used "to inform readers and editors of specific problems with articles or sections".<br />The notion that there is some attempt to portray bare URLs as a {{tq|bogeyman|q=y}} is yet another [[WP:ABF|assumption of bad faith]] by CapnZapp |
|||
::::::::# The process of tagging bare URLs to assist cleanup has been ongoing since late May 2021. In that time, the number of articles with bare URLs has fallen from ~470,000 to ~170,000, a fall of over 60%. At the end of June 2021, the [[:Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations from May 2021|May 2021]] and [[:Category:Articles with bare URLs for citations from June 2021|June 2021]] categories of tagged articles had a combined total of over 30K pages, but as of now the combined total is only 2,063 pages.<br />Note that the fall in the total number of bare URLs is way higher than 60%, because many pages which had multiple bare URLs have been partially cleaned up by filling some of those bare URLs.<br />So the success of this approach is proven. And CapnZapp knows that, because I explained that 60% fall to him yesterday in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template_talk:Cleanup_bare_URLs&diff=1081095159&oldid=1081093848 my second reply to him on this page]. |
|||
::::::::Note that in the last 20 days, CapnZapp has [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=202206060935&target=CapnZapp&limit=56&dir=next made a total of 56 edits]. 17 of those 56 (i.e 30%) are to non-article pages in pursuit of CapnZapp's efforts campaign against cleaning up bare URLs. |
|||
::::::::CapnZapp's ABF rampage across 3 talk pages is unfounded in fact, and it amounts to harassment of those who are working hard to clean up the mess which CapnZapp intentionally creates. Enough! [[User:BrownHairedGirl|<span style="font-variant:small-caps"><span style="color:#663200;">Brown</span>HairedGirl</span>]] <small>[[User talk:BrownHairedGirl|(talk)]] • ([[Special:Contributions/BrownHairedGirl|contribs]])</small> 09:46, 6 April 2022 (UTC) |
|||
* Bare URLs are inadequate references. They are better than nothing for most readers when they are created, but they may become useless in weeks, months or years when the source goes offline or is moved to a different URL. And they do not clearly show the reader what the source is, giving an indication of its usefulness. This is all well known, and BHG is doing amazing work to increase the usefulness of these bare url refs, which may have been added by inexperienced editors who don't know how to format a reference properly, or by those who do, or should, know but choose not to do things properly for reasons of laziness or otherwise. When BHG's work shows up on my (enormous) watchlist, I support her by fixing the identified refs ( recently a [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blavatnik_Awards_for_Young_Scientists&type=revision&diff=1080774917&oldid=1080774555 couple of Jerusalem post refs] she had flagged as not fixable by Refill, if I remember rightly). I fully support BHG's work. If anyone finds the link rot template on a page unsightly, the remedy is in their hands: improve the encyclopedia by mending the refs. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 15:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC) |
* Bare URLs are inadequate references. They are better than nothing for most readers when they are created, but they may become useless in weeks, months or years when the source goes offline or is moved to a different URL. And they do not clearly show the reader what the source is, giving an indication of its usefulness. This is all well known, and BHG is doing amazing work to increase the usefulness of these bare url refs, which may have been added by inexperienced editors who don't know how to format a reference properly, or by those who do, or should, know but choose not to do things properly for reasons of laziness or otherwise. When BHG's work shows up on my (enormous) watchlist, I support her by fixing the identified refs ( recently a [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blavatnik_Awards_for_Young_Scientists&type=revision&diff=1080774917&oldid=1080774555 couple of Jerusalem post refs] she had flagged as not fixable by Refill, if I remember rightly). I fully support BHG's work. If anyone finds the link rot template on a page unsightly, the remedy is in their hands: improve the encyclopedia by mending the refs. [[User:PamD|<span style="color: green">'''''Pam'''''</span>]][[User talk:PamD|<span style="color: brown">'''''D'''''</span>]] 15:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC) |
||
** The comment accusing editors who don't format citations of "laziness" is not helping your cause here. Some editors might do 90% content and 10% maintenance stuff, other editors might do 90% gnomish edits and 10% content, yet others might do 90% vandalism fighting and 10% other stuff. It's a volunteer project. We accept all contributions. Let people contribute how they like rather than accuse people who don't contribute in some favored style of being lazy, rather than having different priorities or deciding that they're more productive doing other things and letting others fix citations. [[User:SnowFire|SnowFire]] ([[User talk:SnowFire|talk]]) 19:33, 15 August 2022 (UTC) |
|||
== Mass spamming == |
|||
Moved to [[Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Mass spamming of Cleanup bare URLs]]<span style="font-weight:bold;color:darkblue">[[User:Moxy|Moxy]]</span>-[[File:Maple Leaf (Pantone).svg|15px|link=User talk:Moxy]] 17:14, 15 August 2022 (UTC) |
|||
: Now [[Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_71#Mass_addition_of_Cleanup_bare_URLs_template]]. [[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]] ([[User talk:CapnZapp|talk]]) 11:42, 25 March 2023 (UTC) |
|||
== Template-protected edit request on 9 September 2023 == |
|||
{{edit template-protected|Template:Cleanup bare URLs|answered=yes}} |
|||
Please replace the current template code with the code below for shortening the clean up template message. |
|||
{{Ambox |
|||
| name = Cleanup bare URLs |
|||
| type = style |
|||
| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot |
|||
| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]] |
|||
| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].''' |
|||
| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] by referring to the [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|template index]] or using tools such as [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|Reflinks]], [[Wikipedia:ReFill|reFill]] and [[User:Citation bot|Citation bot]]. |
|||
| date = {{{date|}}} |
|||
| cat = Articles needing cleanup |
|||
| cat2 = Articles with bare URLs for citations |
|||
| all2 = All articles with bare URLs for citations |
|||
| cat3 = Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
| all3 = All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
| removalnotice = yes |
|||
}} |
|||
<syntaxhighlight lang=text> |
|||
{{SAFESUBST:<noinclude />#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= |
|||
<!--{{Cleanup bare URLs}} begin-->{{Ambox |
|||
| name = Cleanup bare URLs |
|||
| type = style |
|||
| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot |
|||
| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]] |
|||
| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].''' |
|||
| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] by referring to the [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|template index]] or using tools such as [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|Reflinks]], [[Wikipedia:ReFill|reFill]] and [[User:Citation bot|Citation bot]]. |
|||
| date = {{{date|}}} |
|||
| cat = Articles needing cleanup |
|||
| cat2 = Articles with bare URLs for citations |
|||
| all2 = All articles with bare URLs for citations |
|||
| cat3 = Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
| all3 = All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify |
|||
| removalnotice = yes |
|||
}}<!--{{Cleanup bare URLs}} end--> |
|||
}}<noinclude> |
|||
{{Documentation}} |
|||
</noinclude> |
|||
</syntaxhighlight> [[User:CactiStaccingCrane|CactiStaccingCrane]] ([[User talk:CactiStaccingCrane|talk]]) 19:05, 9 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
:{{u|CactiStaccingCrane}}, could you please sandbox this? At the moment it's not clear what you're changing. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 19:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
:: @[[User:Primefac|Primefac]], here's a diff: |
|||
<!-- Generated using w:en:User:NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh/FormattedEditRequest --> |
|||
{| class="diff diff-editfont-monospace" style="margin: auto; font-size: small; overflow-wrap: break-word;" |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-lineno" | Line 5: |
|||
| class="diff-lineno" | Line 5: |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot</nowiki> |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]]</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]]</nowiki> |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-deletedline diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki> uninformative and</nowiki></del><nowiki> vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].'''</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-addedline diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].'''</nowiki> |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-deletedline diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki> ensure</nowiki></del><nowiki> the</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki> article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] and maintains a consistent citation style.</nowiki></del><nowiki> [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>Several</nowiki></del><nowiki> </nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>templates</nowiki></del><nowiki>]] </nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>and</nowiki></del><nowiki> tools</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki> are available to assist in formatting,</nowiki></del><nowiki> such as </nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>{{nowrap|1=[http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?citeweb=checked&lang=en&autoclick=wpDiff&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Reflinks] (</nowiki></del><nowiki>[[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>documentation</nowiki></del><nowiki>]]</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>)}}</nowiki></del><nowiki>, </nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>{{nowrap|1=[https://refill.toolforge.org/ng/result.php?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&defaults=y reFill] (</nowiki></del><nowiki>[[Wikipedia:ReFill|</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>documentation</nowiki></del><nowiki>]]</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>)}}</nowiki></del><nowiki> and </nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>{{nowrap|1=</nowiki></del><nowiki>[</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>https</nowiki></del><nowiki>:</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>//citations.toolforge.org/process_page.php?edit=automated_tools&slow=1&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} </nowiki></del><nowiki>Citation bot</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>] ([[User:</nowiki></del><nowiki>Citation bot</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>|documentation</nowiki></del><nowiki>]]</nowiki><del class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>)}}</nowiki></del><nowiki>.</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-addedline diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]]</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki> by referring</nowiki></ins><nowiki> to the [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>template</nowiki></ins><nowiki> </nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>index</nowiki></ins><nowiki>]] </nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>or using</nowiki></ins><nowiki> tools such as [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>Reflinks</nowiki></ins><nowiki>]], [[Wikipedia:ReFill|</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>reFill</nowiki></ins><nowiki>]] and [</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>[User</nowiki></ins><nowiki>:Citation bot</nowiki><ins class="diffchange diffchange-inline"><nowiki>|</nowiki></ins><nowiki>Citation bot]].</nowiki> |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| date = {{{date|}}}</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| date = {{{date|}}}</nowiki> |
|||
|- |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-deleted" | <nowiki>| cat = Articles needing cleanup</nowiki> |
|||
| class="diff-context diff-side-added" | <nowiki>| cat = Articles needing cleanup</nowiki> |
|||
|} |
|||
::[[User:Qwerfjkl|<span style="background:#1d9ffc; color:white; padding:5px; box-shadow:darkgray 2px 2px 2px;">Qwerfjkl</span>]][[User talk:Qwerfjkl|<span style="background:#79c0f2;color:white; padding:2px; box-shadow:darkgray 2px 2px 2px;">talk</span>]] 22:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
::: {{not done}} This does not look like an improvement to me. [[User:Pppery|* Pppery *]] [[User talk:Pppery|<sub style="color:#800000">it has begun...</sub>]] 22:29, 9 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
== Template-protected edit request on 23 September 2023 == |
|||
{{edit template-protected|Template:Cleanup bare URLs|answered=yes}} |
|||
Please remove the link to Reflinks: it doesn't load/work, is unmaintained, doesn't even have an actual domain as is basically redundant in light of the latter two tools linked. Thanks. |
|||
{{TextDiff|1= |
|||
<nowiki>| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to ensure the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] and maintains a consistent citation style. [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as {{nowrap|1=[http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webreflinks.py?citeweb=checked&lang=en&autoclick=wpDiff&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Reflinks] ([[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|documentation]])}}, {{nowrap|1=[https://refill.toolforge.org/ng/result.php?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&defaults=y reFill] ([[Wikipedia:ReFill|documentation]])}} and {{nowrap|1=[https://citations.toolforge.org/process_page.php?edit=automated_tools&slow=1&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Citation bot] ([[User:Citation bot|documentation]])}}.</nowiki> |
|||
|2= |
|||
<nowiki>| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to ensure the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] and maintains a consistent citation style. [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as {{nowrap|1=[https://refill.toolforge.org/ng/result.php?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&defaults=y reFill] ([[Wikipedia:ReFill|documentation]])}} and {{nowrap|1=[https://citations.toolforge.org/process_page.php?edit=automated_tools&slow=1&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Citation bot] ([[User:Citation bot|documentation]])}}.</nowiki> |
|||
}} – [[User:Isochrone|<span style="color:#042559">I</span><span style="color:#0c3c8a">s</span><span style="color:#1d58b8">o</span>chrone]] ([[User talk:Isochrone|T]]) 16:03, 23 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
:{{done}}<!-- Template:ETp --> [[User:SWinxy|SWinxy]] ([[User talk:SWinxy|talk]]) 22:36, 23 September 2023 (UTC) |
|||
== excessive usage (cont'd) == |
|||
I used Wikipedia's external tool (available at "what links here") and got: |
|||
23883 transclusion(s) found |
|||
This tells me that, yes, this template (not to mention the defense of it here on talk!) ''was'' used overly aggressively. The argument "it's only temporary" has fallen. The end result is completely predictable; that bare URLs are ''not'' welcomed in the way our information page suggests: |
|||
{{quote|Adding a bare URL reference to Wikipedia is much more helpful than no reference. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, that is a helpful first step, and we thank you for your contribution!}} |
|||
Assuming we <u>like it</u> when readers contribute with new references, we should not punish them by posting highly-visible templates at the top of the screen. Especially if this doesn't help and these templates remain there semi-permanently, mostly acting to shame perfectly good ("helpful first steps", remember?) additions. (Hint: stop assuming a tag will magically make others do editing work!) |
|||
Now let's get rid of these unsightly templates. The fact an URL is bare is a perfectly reasonable technical note ''for editors'' - it should not be given equal importance to templates that actually caution readers the article information might be compromised somehow. That a URL is bare is not a problem for the reader, at least not a sufficiently huge one that merits tagging the entire article. If this template ("Cleanup bare URLs") lives at the end of articles, or at talk pages, that feels like a measured approach. Remember, this was more or less a personal crusade, with no discussion about "should we actually do" this beforehand. And the rather extreme responses I got last time around (see [[#Excessive_usage?]] above or in the archive) achieved their purpose - steering away discussion from a calm friendly discussion aimed at reaching a consensus. |
|||
So let us discuss this from the start. Let me first say I completely agree some of you are utterly fed up by the thankless job of converting references and that creating "full" references definitely is a worthy job that makes the encyclopedia better. |
|||
So why not admonish users that don't do this? Why not scare/shame our readers into not contributing bare urls? |
|||
:'''''Because it does not work.''''' |
|||
The only result you ever get by punishing people, telling them what to do and not to do is that they simply stop helping out. The presence of this tag on top of (if I understand transclusions correctly) over 20000 articles makes people go "if Wiki doesn't approve of my reference then fuck them" and they leave. |
|||
This tag is the perfect example of losing sight of what's important. Welcoming users in a friendly way is far more important than lecturing contributors they didn't do enough. This tag is a blight on Wikipedia, seeing how it has been spammed onto so very many pages. Again your aims are commendable and not something I question; let's discuss the ways we go about this. |
|||
We should - as our information page says - welcome contributors even if they can't understand or take the time to make a full citation. As I write on my user page: "I subscribe to the school of thought that considers all references welcome contributions to Wikipedia, including bare URL references. Complaining about them will only result in fewer contributions." |
|||
Full citations are maybe trivial to write for you. But you reading this is highly likely to be a very experienced Wikipedian with a year's worth of editing experience (if not a dozen). Please don't assume it is reasonable to ask new or newish people to choose between either contributing a full citation or not contribute at all. The alternative to just supply the link and edit the article to present its fact should be considered a perfectly reasonable contribution. Anything more than that just is too much work for enough potential contributors that we should not decide to live without them. |
|||
So. I ask of us to please stop telling or asking newcomers to create full citations. Even adding the most bare of urls (i.e. adding ref html tags before and after their link) is enough, and we should welcome and encourage readers that by this act turns into fledgling editors. The discussion on how to best get references in tip top shape should absolutely continue, but ''after'' we agree to get rid of the idea to place this banner at the top of every article for no other reason than some of its references might be bare. |
|||
[[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]] ([[User talk:CapnZapp|talk]]) 08:23, 3 December 2023 (UTC) |
|||
:Your last paragraph seems to imply that we should not have this template at all; if that is the case, then this discussion should be had at [[WP:TFD]] and not here. If this is not the case, please clarify what consensus you are aiming to secure. [[User:Primefac|Primefac]] ([[User talk:Primefac|talk]]) 15:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC) |
|||
:: The template itself, if used sparingly, is fine. The recent massive increase in usage is not fine, especially as it was just a personal initiative with no prior consensus building that it was all really needed, and actually would work. It ignored any voice saying "maybe bare URLs aren't the huge evil you're making them out to be". Let us stop deploying this template semi-routinely, at least without first having a proper discussion that identifies this tag as a workable solution to a severe enough problem, and then ends up asking select users to devote energy to seeing this template all over the place. You know, an action borne out of the needs of the greater community rather than "bold action" (which is what I meant by personal initiative). There was never any good faith attempt to get rid of the suspicion this was just a crusade by individual frustrated editors, that went "damn the consequences at least people now see we're doing something". Criticism was met by overwhelming defensiveness and far too many opportunities to make it personal, and thus derail discussion, was taken. Here are a couple of questions that I feel weren't discussed BEFORE this template saw increased usage by a sufficiently large group of editors, given the high visibility of the template. Are bare URLs really that severe of an issue to justify top banners like this? Does placing these tags really fix the problem, or do they just shame users and uglify Wikipedia semi-permanently? Is it really reasonable to ask regular users to either take the (not inconsiderable) time to construct a full citation or stay the frak away? What happened with the viewpoint that we welcome contributions and are thankful even if the references "only" contain a link? All of which should have been done BEFORE this banner was (allowed to be) spammed all across Wikipedia. {{pb}} TL;DR: Let's agree to stop deploying this tag and undo its addition in all the semi-routinely applied cases, at least temporarily, until a community-wide drive to renew that push has been achieved. (Hopefully the energy for such a drive has now dissipated though.) [[User:CapnZapp|CapnZapp]] ([[User talk:CapnZapp|talk]]) 21:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC) |
Latest revision as of 21:30, 4 December 2023
![]() | Edit requests | |||
|
![]() | Reference works Unassessed (inactive) | ||||||
|
Excessive usage?
Not sure who has this on Watchlist, so let me first make a pinging post: @MarnetteD, PamD, BrownHairedGirl, and Matthiaspaul: - I just picked four frequent names, do feel free to ping other interested parties. CapnZapp (talk) 07:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- I'm here, as summoned, but have no idea what you want to talk about. Please clarify! PamD 07:42, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Okay, so I have noticed there's a very aggressive drive (or project etc) to point to Bare URL's lately. Just in March alone there appears to have been added over forty thousand instances of this template at the top of articles.
This gotta stop.
If I assume good faith, the purpose is to help y'all to better help each other to find and fix Bare URL's. That's fine. If you didn't put the banner at the top of the article! Or, if (as is alluded to in a previous talk section) you clean up articles just as quickly as you tag them. However, as a tool for internal communication, an invisible category (or something) would work just as fine. That forces me to conclude your aim isn't (only) to coordinate your efforts, but also to shame Bare URL's.
Stop this at once! Please, and thank you.
If you wish Bare URLs to be seen by the project as something bad or shameful or insufficient, bring it up to a sitewide discussion. Until then, you simply must contain your frustrations. I am going to assume everybody reading this agrees fully to the following:
- Bare URL's are much better than no references at all, and Wikipedia thanks the users that add them. While Bare URLs aren't perfect, they sure are better than nothing at all. In fact, the Bare URL is the most valuable part of a citation - everything else is just gravy. Moreover, adding references is somewhat timeconsuming and awkward (for new and old users alike), and in practice the alternative to a Bare URL is often no contribution at all. — CapnZapp 07:52, 5 April 2022 — continues after insertion below
- I am breaking convention to interject in the middle of CapnZapp's post to note that this assumption is not only only untrue, but is known by CapnZapp to be untrue. The relevant guidance is at WP:Bare_URLs#What_is_right_with_bare_URLs?, and it notes the problems with bare URLs. CapnZapp is aware of this, since he was party to the recent discussions on the guidance, which rejected the view he asserts in the block above.
CapnZapp should not try to mislead. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:42, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- I am breaking convention to interject in the middle of CapnZapp's post to note that this assumption is not only only untrue, but is known by CapnZapp to be untrue. The relevant guidance is at WP:Bare_URLs#What_is_right_with_bare_URLs?, and it notes the problems with bare URLs. CapnZapp is aware of this, since he was party to the recent discussions on the guidance, which rejected the view he asserts in the block above.
Feel free to discuss, but I'm asking you to stop putting this template at the top of so many articles unless you can show you are cleaning them up at the same pace. I see no greater consensus for your project where people are aware of lousing down the entire Wikipedia with this template.
In short: don't put this template on top of every article with a Bare URL - it is counterproductive and only makes Wikipedia look bad. Cleanup tags lose their value if "every" article has them.
At the very least I urge you to consider stopping (semi-automated additions through scripts and bots) until >80% of existing instances of this tag has been resolved and removed.
CapnZapp (talk) 07:52, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp writes:
don't put this template on top of every article with a Bare URL
- So, some data:
- There are currently about 170,000 articles with WP:Bare URLs. (numbers from my scans of the 20220401 database dump)
- {{Cleanup bare URLs}} currently has 2038 transclusions, of which 1,589 are in articles
- so the assertion that people are
lousing down the entire Wikipedia with this template
is utter nonsense.
- The tags are being added and removed all the time. I run a regular AWB job to remove redundant {{Cleanup bare URLs}} tags. In the last few months, the total number of pages tagged with {{Cleanup bare URLs}} has fallen from over 7,000 in mainspace to under 1,600 in mainspace.
- The background to this is that @CapnZapp refuses to fill any URLs he adds, and actively opposes cleanup efforts. For an example of CapnZapp's active efforts to oppose cleanup of bare URls, see WT:Bare URLs#"we_don't_need_this" (permalink]).
- Many editors are working hard to fill the bare URLs which newbie editors (and some lazy editors like CapnZapp) have added and left to rot. But yet again, instead of trying to help, CapnZapp is harassing those who do this cleanup work, and makes a wholly bogus assertion that the aim of tagging is to
to shame Bare URL's
. As has been pointed out to CapnZapp many times before, the aim is not to "shame" anything or anyone: it is to mark a problem which should be fixed. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)- PS CapnZapp seems unaware of — or even contemptuous of — the huge work that is being done to fill bare URLs.
- MarnetteD does a lot of work on filing them. So does Derek R Bullamore, and Storchy. PamD does some too.
- And for the lst nine months, I have worked full time on en.wp doing almost nothing else but tag and/or fill bare URLs, using a huge variety of tools. Rlink2 is also doing a lot of excellent work, using skilled programming to rescue dead links and archive refs.
- The result of all this work is that the total number of article-space pages with bare URLs is has fallen by about 60%: from ~470,00 in May 2021 to to ~170,00 now.
- I do not expect CapnZapp to say "thank you all for cleaning up after me". But I am utterly fed up with CapnZapp's harassment of the editors who clean up the mess he makes, and with his endless assumptions of bad faith, and with his absurdly hyperbolic assertions such as
Cleanup tags lose their value if "every" article has them
. Thanks to the ongoing cleanup effort, {{Cleanup bare URLs}} is only on about 0.025% of articles. - Zapp, how about you stop sniping and exggerating and ABFing ... and start helping? BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 08:30, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp, if you feel lazy to use citation templates, you could at the very least use the bracketed form (e.g:
<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org Wikipedia, the free Encylopedia]</ref>
. While some would prefer the usage of citation tempates, using this way is also acceptable per WP:CITEVAR (Correct me if I am wrong). Many veteran editors to this day use this style. However, bare refs (URLS with no other contextual information) are not acceptable via consensus because it leaves no information about the URL in question. Saying "Bare URLS are better than no reference at all" is like saying "Placing the links to the references in the article text itself (not even using the ref tag) is better than no reference at all" or "placing the references before the article itself is better than no reference at all, even though the readers have to scroll all the way down." - Would you like it if your job or employer only paid half of your salary, and when you confronted them, they said "Being paid some money is better than being paid no money at all"?
- BrownHairedGirl has been editing Wikipedia since 2006 - that's a long time. For perspective, In 2006, Bush was still president and Youtube/Facebook/Twitter were barely a thing. These singers were still popular as well, the iPhone didn't exist in 2006 either.
- Due to her extensive experience on Wikipedia, she's seen first hand the damage bare URLs can do to the project. So when she says Bare URLS should be filled, she's basing her opinion of a a decade and a half of experience on this website. Experience very few others have.
- Brownhairedgirl and others have given reasons for why bare URLs should not be placed in, but I can't see any reasons coming from you that show bare URLs are a good thing.
in practice the alternative to a Bare URL is often no contribution at all.
Wikipedia has tens of thousands of contributors and the majority of them are not adding bare URLS at all. The alternative to a Bare URL is a citation with the title of the source included, at the minimum.- Per Wikipedia policy:
Contributors whose actions over a period of time are detrimental to the goal of creating a high-quality encyclopedia may be asked to refrain from those actions, when other efforts to address the issue have failed, even when their actions are undertaken in good faith.
. And that's exactly what Primefac and BrownHairedGirl have done in the discussion above. What sets Wikipedia apart from other wikis (Fandom, Miraheze, RationalWiki, etc...) is the way we treat sources and citations (not to say the other wikis are low quality, its just that their goals, purpose, and focus are different). - Another relevant section of policy is :
While editors are expected to follow Wikipedia policies and practices to the best of their abilities, they are not expected to be perfect. However, they are expected to listen to feedback from others and, where appropriate, learn from it. Repeated and serious editing errors can be disruptive as they create unnecessary work for others.
and that is also what is happening here, because editors are forced to clean up after any possible additions of Bare URLs. So while I don't think adding Bare URLS is disruptive when someone is unaware of the downsides, it can be construed that that continuing to add them while knowing about the downsides, which goes against clear consensus, and while having no clear reason for doing so, is a different story. At the very least, if you are going to add Bare URLs, you should have a good reason for doing so, like I said above. - Brownhairedgirl has spent nearly 70 hours a week on cleaning up bare URLs. The mininum wage in Ireland is 12 dollars an hour. Her work is much more valuable and skilled then 12 dollars an hour, so let's say she was hypothetically being paid 25 dollars an hour for her work. 25 dollars * 70 hours * 4 weeks * 9 months is $63,000 dollars. So that means that BrownHairedGirl has peformed about $63,000 dollars worth of work on Wikipedia in the past 9 months to clean up bare URLs. That's alot of hypothetical money, and work. Combine everyone elses work on cleaning bare URLS, we are talking about thousands of hours of man time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in hypothetical money and worth.
- At the end of the day, if you still don't understand, I agree with Johnuniq's suggestion:
Please just make a proposal for a change and give a reason for why it should be implemented.
- the village pumps are always there. - cc @BrownHairedGirl Rlink2 (talk) 14:28, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- You appear to be writing under the assumption I want to change anything - I don't. (Unless you suggest I need to go to the pumps to change how this template gets used? If so, no, the current discussion is enough for me at least) But when BHG wrote "The fact that you choose to repeatedly add bare URLs despite knowing the problems with them simply means that you are one of those selfish editors who intentionally edits in a way which requires others to clean up after them. Please stop being selfish", my response is "so you want me to stop adding references altogether?" Thus far, we haven't been able to get to the crux of the issue. BHG makes it out to be like I'm harassing her. I am not. I have no need for big emotions or drama; I just want her to understand that if she were to successfully prohibit users from adding bare URLs the alternative would most likely be that no references at all would be added, and I have a hard time wrapping my head around that thinking. To me, that indicates someone too frustrated with their (valuable) cleanup work. To me, such a person sees only/mostly problems with bare URLs instead of mostly seeing value. If you Rlink2 want to make the sitewide case that adding bare URLs is disruptive when the editor no longer is a newbie (my words not yours), you should go ahead with that. It is as far as I can see not at all the case currently. To the best of my knowledge references are only discussed on a few pages, and bare URLs are hardly mentioned at all outside of Bare URLs - which isn't even policy or guideline. I'm basing my stance on what I can read in our documentation, and what I see is
- @CapnZapp, if you feel lazy to use citation templates, you could at the very least use the bracketed form (e.g:
Adding a bare URL reference to Wikipedia is much more helpful than no reference. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, that is a helpful first step, and we thank you for your contribution!
- This, by the way, is the current version which BHG, Marnette and Primefac have all edited more recently than I. If you can point me to an actual policy or guideline that prohibits (does not welcome, strongly discourages, hates, finds unhelpful or disruptive, or somesuch) the contributing of references in the form of Bare URLs (and thus also the rejection of additions that thus would go unsourced) we should certainly rephrase the above. Myself I would see that as a huge blow to Wikipedia's friendliness and ease of use, and I reject BHG's view that I am somehow disruptive to the project. Now then - do you still think I don't "understand"? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 18:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp
so you want me to stop adding references altogether?
- Using the previous examples, imagine if your employer said "Yeah, were paying you half of what we promised, but do you want us to stop paying you completely?"
- Imagine if you blanked the article with the ref, and a note that says "If you want the full article go to the page history", and you tell the person who reverts your edit that "so you want me to stop adding references all together"?
- Imagine if you put in the ref tag that the link to the source is on your talk page or is hidden in a comment on another article, and someone says that you should actually put in the article, would you tell them that "so you want me to stop adding references all together"?
- Imagine if you just randomly placed the link in the middle of the article, in a place where it doesn't even belong, in the middle of sentnces, and when someone asks you to do it the right way, you say: "this is easier for me; do you want me to stop adding references all together?"
- You get the idea.
want to make the sitewide case that adding bare URLs is disruptive when the editor no longer is a newbie (my words not yours)
I never said that. I quoted Wikipedia policy that states engaging in activites that go against consensus is disruptive, especially when other people have pointed out the errors in the editing.I have no need for big emotions or drama;
Me neither. I dont like drama.To me, that indicates someone too frustrated with their (valuable) cleanup work.
You opened up with this thread demanding that the cleanup work should stop. You saidStop this at once! Please, and thank you.
in your first post here.I just want her to understand that if she were to successfully prohibit users from adding bare URLs the alternative would most likely be that no references at all would be added
andMyself I would see that as a huge blow to Wikipedia's friendliness and ease of use
Reminder that 99% of the URLS added to Wikipedia daily are not bare URLs, so the result of Bare URLS being banned is that the few people adding bare URLs will learn the "right" way of doing stuff.I'm basing my stance on what I can read in our documentation
The documentation is supposed to reflect consensus. If there is a difference between what the conesnsus is and what the documentation is, the consensus wins and the documentation needs to be updated. That phrase was added in only after you started complaining about Bare URLs being a good thing.If you can point me to an actual policy or guideline that prohibits
Policies reflect conesnus, and the conensus is that bare URLS should not be added if at all possible. In this case, it is possible to not use Bare URLs, but you don't want to and haven't given a reason for why.- If you think Bare URLs are good, we would like to hear your reasoning behind it. Rlink2 (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- I am not interested in arguing "Bare URLs are good", the Bare URL essay already tells me that (and the absence of even a mention of bare URLs in the overarching policy documents re: citations is also telling). If you believe "the conensus is that bare URLS should not be added if at all possible" you are (once again) welcome to change the documentation to "reflect" that consensus (and ideally you would edit a policy or guideline, not merely an essay). Myself, I think that if that indeed were the consensus somebody would have attempted to "reflect" that view in the documentation. Before the current spate of edits, say July last year (but do feel free to pick your own revision), the section called "What is wrong with bare URLs?" began with: "There is nothing wrong with adding bare URL references to Wikipedia. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, we thank you for your contribution!" I can only assume the document indeed does reflect consensus here - the meaning if not the phrasing remains essentially intact today! CapnZapp (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp
you are (once again) welcome to change the documentation to "reflect" that consensus (and ideally you would edit a policy or guideline, not merely an essay).
You are missing the point of what I am trying to say. This is not about the documentation (or lack thereof). You started the thread asking the editors working on Bare URLs to stop their work becauseThis gotta stop.
, and thatWhile Bare URLs aren't perfect, they sure are better than nothing at all.
(both of which have been addressed) We wouldn't have even known you were adding bare URLs until you decided to bring it up.- For a moment, let's ignore the documentation. Let's focus on what editors are saying, because consensus, and not necessarily a guideline document, is what we have to follow. If a guideline said
"If you don't have the time to put your reference in a ref tag, feel free to just paste it randomly in the article, we thank you for your contribution!"
it doesn't mean there is consensus for that. - Similiarly, if your paycheck said
We don't have the resources to pay you what we promised, but thank you for your service!
you would be angry, wouldn't you? Before the current spate of edits, say July last year (but do feel free to pick your own revision), the section called "What is wrong with bare URLs?" began with: "There is nothing wrong with adding bare URL references to Wikipedia. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, we thank you for your contribution!"
Before you started all of this, the article had no such language. You added the language here in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Bare_URLs&diff=928389198&oldid=925793258 and its been reworded and added upon since, but that was your addition. Maybe it was an acceptable addition then, but keep in mindConsensus is not immutable. It is reasonable, and sometimes necessary, for both individual editors and particularly the community as a whole to change its mind.
Rlink2 (talk) 21:14, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- I am not interested in arguing "Bare URLs are good", the Bare URL essay already tells me that (and the absence of even a mention of bare URLs in the overarching policy documents re: citations is also telling). If you believe "the conensus is that bare URLS should not be added if at all possible" you are (once again) welcome to change the documentation to "reflect" that consensus (and ideally you would edit a policy or guideline, not merely an essay). Myself, I think that if that indeed were the consensus somebody would have attempted to "reflect" that view in the documentation. Before the current spate of edits, say July last year (but do feel free to pick your own revision), the section called "What is wrong with bare URLs?" began with: "There is nothing wrong with adding bare URL references to Wikipedia. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, we thank you for your contribution!" I can only assume the document indeed does reflect consensus here - the meaning if not the phrasing remains essentially intact today! CapnZapp (talk) 20:41, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp, this is the third page on which you have tried in the last few months to create a drama about bare URL cleanup.
- In each case, your vocal complaints are based on your false premises and your endless assumptions of bad faith.
- On this page you have asserted falsely that {{Cleanup bare URLs}} is being applied on a huge scale: that
people are lousing down the entire Wikipedia with this template
. Utter nonsense: the template has less than 1,600 uses in mainspace, and that number has been falling for three months. - The second false assumption is CapnZapp's statement to me
I just want her to understand that if she were to successfully prohibit users from adding bare URLs
. - This is also utter nonsense: I have no such goal, and I have not said anything which could be interpreted as a desire for prohibition. That is a complete fabrication.
- CapnZapp has also asserted that
your aim isn't (only) to coordinate your efforts, but also to shame Bare URL's
. This too is utterly false. - CapnZapp sys
BHG makes it out to be like I'm harassing her. I am not.
. That too is utter nonsense: the harassment is CapnZapp's assumptions of bad faith and repeated false claims. I am fed up with having to waste tine rebutting this barrage of nonsense. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:53, 5 April 2022 (UTC)- All this time I'm spending talking here is time I could be using to work on BareRefBot and similar. So this will probably be my last response.
- @CapnZapp, you have every right to hold your opinions. If you want to continue using bare URLs, I will respect your decision. No one will stop you from adding bare URLs to articles, if that's what you want to do. At the same time, respect should be given to the people that fill in the bare refs, because while you say a bare ref is better than no ref, I think we are all in agreement that a non bare ref is better than a bare ref. We did not approach you to stop using Bare URLs, you approached us to stop filling Bare URLs. Rlink2 (talk) 02:14, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
- I am certainly not stopping anyone from filling bare URLs, or trying to. I did ask the question whether it was necessary to involve highly public banners in that work, since it doesn't make sense to me to first welcome the contributions only to then slap a big banner on them. I still think nothing good will come out of the present attempt to making bare URLs out to be some kind of bogeyman, and I don't see where BHG has demonstrated the need to go about it this way. Maybe the (worthy) work could be done in a less conspicuous manner, that is more in the spirit of what I can read over at Bare URLs? CapnZapp (talk) 07:19, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
- The banners are fine: there is no harm in reminding editors that bare URL refs are below the expected standard and should be improved for the benefit of current and future readers of the article, and acknowledging to readers that this article is sub-optimal in that regard. PamD 07:25, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
- @CapnZapp writes
I still think nothing good will come out of the present attempt to making bare URLs out to be some kind of bogeyman
. - Yet more hyperbolic nonsense.
- See WP:Cleanup tags: the tags are used "to inform readers and editors of specific problems with articles or sections".
The notion that there is some attempt to portray bare URLs as abogeyman
is yet another assumption of bad faith by CapnZapp - The process of tagging bare URLs to assist cleanup has been ongoing since late May 2021. In that time, the number of articles with bare URLs has fallen from ~470,000 to ~170,000, a fall of over 60%. At the end of June 2021, the May 2021 and June 2021 categories of tagged articles had a combined total of over 30K pages, but as of now the combined total is only 2,063 pages.
Note that the fall in the total number of bare URLs is way higher than 60%, because many pages which had multiple bare URLs have been partially cleaned up by filling some of those bare URLs.
So the success of this approach is proven. And CapnZapp knows that, because I explained that 60% fall to him yesterday in my second reply to him on this page.
- See WP:Cleanup tags: the tags are used "to inform readers and editors of specific problems with articles or sections".
- Note that in the last 20 days, CapnZapp has made a total of 56 edits. 17 of those 56 (i.e 30%) are to non-article pages in pursuit of CapnZapp's efforts campaign against cleaning up bare URLs.
- CapnZapp's ABF rampage across 3 talk pages is unfounded in fact, and it amounts to harassment of those who are working hard to clean up the mess which CapnZapp intentionally creates. Enough! BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 09:46, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
- I am certainly not stopping anyone from filling bare URLs, or trying to. I did ask the question whether it was necessary to involve highly public banners in that work, since it doesn't make sense to me to first welcome the contributions only to then slap a big banner on them. I still think nothing good will come out of the present attempt to making bare URLs out to be some kind of bogeyman, and I don't see where BHG has demonstrated the need to go about it this way. Maybe the (worthy) work could be done in a less conspicuous manner, that is more in the spirit of what I can read over at Bare URLs? CapnZapp (talk) 07:19, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
- This, by the way, is the current version which BHG, Marnette and Primefac have all edited more recently than I. If you can point me to an actual policy or guideline that prohibits (does not welcome, strongly discourages, hates, finds unhelpful or disruptive, or somesuch) the contributing of references in the form of Bare URLs (and thus also the rejection of additions that thus would go unsourced) we should certainly rephrase the above. Myself I would see that as a huge blow to Wikipedia's friendliness and ease of use, and I reject BHG's view that I am somehow disruptive to the project. Now then - do you still think I don't "understand"? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 18:37, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- Bare URLs are inadequate references. They are better than nothing for most readers when they are created, but they may become useless in weeks, months or years when the source goes offline or is moved to a different URL. And they do not clearly show the reader what the source is, giving an indication of its usefulness. This is all well known, and BHG is doing amazing work to increase the usefulness of these bare url refs, which may have been added by inexperienced editors who don't know how to format a reference properly, or by those who do, or should, know but choose not to do things properly for reasons of laziness or otherwise. When BHG's work shows up on my (enormous) watchlist, I support her by fixing the identified refs ( recently a couple of Jerusalem post refs she had flagged as not fixable by Refill, if I remember rightly). I fully support BHG's work. If anyone finds the link rot template on a page unsightly, the remedy is in their hands: improve the encyclopedia by mending the refs. PamD 15:19, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
- The comment accusing editors who don't format citations of "laziness" is not helping your cause here. Some editors might do 90% content and 10% maintenance stuff, other editors might do 90% gnomish edits and 10% content, yet others might do 90% vandalism fighting and 10% other stuff. It's a volunteer project. We accept all contributions. Let people contribute how they like rather than accuse people who don't contribute in some favored style of being lazy, rather than having different priorities or deciding that they're more productive doing other things and letting others fix citations. SnowFire (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
Mass spamming
Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Mass spamming of Cleanup bare URLsMoxy- 17:14, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
- Now Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_71#Mass_addition_of_Cleanup_bare_URLs_template. CapnZapp (talk) 11:42, 25 March 2023 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 9 September 2023
Please replace the current template code with the code below for shortening the clean up template message.
{{SAFESUBST:<noinclude />#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B=
<!--{{Cleanup bare URLs}} begin-->{{Ambox
| name = Cleanup bare URLs
| type = style
| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot
| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]]
| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].'''
| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] by referring to the [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|template index]] or using tools such as [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|Reflinks]], [[Wikipedia:ReFill|reFill]] and [[User:Citation bot|Citation bot]].
| date = {{{date|}}}
| cat = Articles needing cleanup
| cat2 = Articles with bare URLs for citations
| all2 = All articles with bare URLs for citations
| cat3 = Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify
| all3 = All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify
| removalnotice = yes
}}<!--{{Cleanup bare URLs}} end-->
}}<noinclude>
{{Documentation}}
</noinclude>
CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 19:05, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- CactiStaccingCrane, could you please sandbox this? At the moment it's not clear what you're changing. Primefac (talk) 19:35, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Primefac, here's a diff:
Line 5: | Line 5: |
| class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot | | class = ambox-cleanup-link_rot |
| image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]] | | image = [[File:Text document with red question mark.svg|50x40px|link=|alt=]] |
| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are |
| issue = This {{{1|article}}} '''uses [[Wikipedia:Bare URLs|bare URLs]], which are vulnerable to [[Wikipedia:Link rot|link rot]].''' |
| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to |
| fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] by referring to the [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|template index]] or using tools such as [[User:Dispenser/Reflinks|Reflinks]], [[Wikipedia:ReFill|reFill]] and [[User:Citation bot|Citation bot]]. |
| date = {{{date|}}} | | date = {{{date|}}} |
| cat = Articles needing cleanup | | cat = Articles needing cleanup |
- Qwerfjkltalk 22:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Not done This does not look like an improvement to me. * Pppery * it has begun... 22:29, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Qwerfjkltalk 22:24, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 23 September 2023
Please remove the link to Reflinks: it doesn't load/work, is unmaintained, doesn't even have an actual domain as is basically redundant in light of the latter two tools linked. Thanks.
− | | fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to ensure the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] and maintains a consistent citation style. [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as | + | | fix = Please consider converting them to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation styles|full citations]] to ensure the article remains [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiable]] and maintains a consistent citation style. [[Wikipedia:Template index/Sources of articles#Examples|Several templates]] and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as {{nowrap|1=[https://refill.toolforge.org/ng/result.php?page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}}&defaults=y reFill] ([[Wikipedia:ReFill|documentation]])}} and {{nowrap|1=[https://citations.toolforge.org/process_page.php?edit=automated_tools&slow=1&page={{FULLPAGENAMEE}} Citation bot] ([[User:Citation bot|documentation]])}}. |
– Isochrone (T) 16:03, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
excessive usage (cont'd)
I used Wikipedia's external tool (available at "what links here") and got:
23883 transclusion(s) found
This tells me that, yes, this template (not to mention the defense of it here on talk!) was used overly aggressively. The argument "it's only temporary" has fallen. The end result is completely predictable; that bare URLs are not welcomed in the way our information page suggests:
Adding a bare URL reference to Wikipedia is much more helpful than no reference. If you only have time and inclination to copy the reference URL you found, that is a helpful first step, and we thank you for your contribution!
Assuming we like it when readers contribute with new references, we should not punish them by posting highly-visible templates at the top of the screen. Especially if this doesn't help and these templates remain there semi-permanently, mostly acting to shame perfectly good ("helpful first steps", remember?) additions. (Hint: stop assuming a tag will magically make others do editing work!)
Now let's get rid of these unsightly templates. The fact an URL is bare is a perfectly reasonable technical note for editors - it should not be given equal importance to templates that actually caution readers the article information might be compromised somehow. That a URL is bare is not a problem for the reader, at least not a sufficiently huge one that merits tagging the entire article. If this template ("Cleanup bare URLs") lives at the end of articles, or at talk pages, that feels like a measured approach. Remember, this was more or less a personal crusade, with no discussion about "should we actually do" this beforehand. And the rather extreme responses I got last time around (see #Excessive_usage? above or in the archive) achieved their purpose - steering away discussion from a calm friendly discussion aimed at reaching a consensus.
So let us discuss this from the start. Let me first say I completely agree some of you are utterly fed up by the thankless job of converting references and that creating "full" references definitely is a worthy job that makes the encyclopedia better.
So why not admonish users that don't do this? Why not scare/shame our readers into not contributing bare urls?
- Because it does not work.
The only result you ever get by punishing people, telling them what to do and not to do is that they simply stop helping out. The presence of this tag on top of (if I understand transclusions correctly) over 20000 articles makes people go "if Wiki doesn't approve of my reference then fuck them" and they leave.
This tag is the perfect example of losing sight of what's important. Welcoming users in a friendly way is far more important than lecturing contributors they didn't do enough. This tag is a blight on Wikipedia, seeing how it has been spammed onto so very many pages. Again your aims are commendable and not something I question; let's discuss the ways we go about this.
We should - as our information page says - welcome contributors even if they can't understand or take the time to make a full citation. As I write on my user page: "I subscribe to the school of thought that considers all references welcome contributions to Wikipedia, including bare URL references. Complaining about them will only result in fewer contributions."
Full citations are maybe trivial to write for you. But you reading this is highly likely to be a very experienced Wikipedian with a year's worth of editing experience (if not a dozen). Please don't assume it is reasonable to ask new or newish people to choose between either contributing a full citation or not contribute at all. The alternative to just supply the link and edit the article to present its fact should be considered a perfectly reasonable contribution. Anything more than that just is too much work for enough potential contributors that we should not decide to live without them.
So. I ask of us to please stop telling or asking newcomers to create full citations. Even adding the most bare of urls (i.e. adding ref html tags before and after their link) is enough, and we should welcome and encourage readers that by this act turns into fledgling editors. The discussion on how to best get references in tip top shape should absolutely continue, but after we agree to get rid of the idea to place this banner at the top of every article for no other reason than some of its references might be bare.
CapnZapp (talk) 08:23, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
- Your last paragraph seems to imply that we should not have this template at all; if that is the case, then this discussion should be had at WP:TFD and not here. If this is not the case, please clarify what consensus you are aiming to secure. Primefac (talk) 15:10, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
- The template itself, if used sparingly, is fine. The recent massive increase in usage is not fine, especially as it was just a personal initiative with no prior consensus building that it was all really needed, and actually would work. It ignored any voice saying "maybe bare URLs aren't the huge evil you're making them out to be". Let us stop deploying this template semi-routinely, at least without first having a proper discussion that identifies this tag as a workable solution to a severe enough problem, and then ends up asking select users to devote energy to seeing this template all over the place. You know, an action borne out of the needs of the greater community rather than "bold action" (which is what I meant by personal initiative). There was never any good faith attempt to get rid of the suspicion this was just a crusade by individual frustrated editors, that went "damn the consequences at least people now see we're doing something". Criticism was met by overwhelming defensiveness and far too many opportunities to make it personal, and thus derail discussion, was taken. Here are a couple of questions that I feel weren't discussed BEFORE this template saw increased usage by a sufficiently large group of editors, given the high visibility of the template. Are bare URLs really that severe of an issue to justify top banners like this? Does placing these tags really fix the problem, or do they just shame users and uglify Wikipedia semi-permanently? Is it really reasonable to ask regular users to either take the (not inconsiderable) time to construct a full citation or stay the frak away? What happened with the viewpoint that we welcome contributions and are thankful even if the references "only" contain a link? All of which should have been done BEFORE this banner was (allowed to be) spammed all across Wikipedia. TL;DR: Let's agree to stop deploying this tag and undo its addition in all the semi-routinely applied cases, at least temporarily, until a community-wide drive to renew that push has been achieved. (Hopefully the energy for such a drive has now dissipated though.) CapnZapp (talk) 21:29, 4 December 2023 (UTC)