Template talk:Cite

Language and format

Can there be an option to show the language of the source? I forgot to mention in the proposal that it could be added as another parameter. Or a format parameter for digital publications so that, let's say for web manuals, a (PDF) is displayed next to the title to show the reader the format of the publication? Super Mario RPG (talk) 12:27, February 7, 2024 (EST)

Added both. --Steve (talk) 18:52, February 7, 2024 (EST)

Dead links

If the original link in a source is dead, I find it more accessible to format the citation like this. Basically, the original link is replaced with the archived one, so that the sole working link becomes more readily available. The original link is then moved to the archive's summary through an added "from the original" field; I don't really know if there is a formal, established reason for doing so, but I think it's a helpful feature to have in the (unlikely, but possible) event one reads a wiki article through, say, the Wayback Machine, as clicking the original link from there will lead the user to an archive of it directly. (The archive link itself can't be used with Wayback Machine, since it obviously does not archive its own archives.)
Could a deadlink parameter be added to the code so that, when given a value, the template is reorganized as I explained above? -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:22, February 7, 2024 (EST)

Should be good to go. --Steve (talk) 00:22, February 8, 2024 (EST)

automatically add http or https

Is it possible that this template could automatically add the http or https prefix when using the url parameter? Super Mario RPG (talk) 12:40, February 8, 2024 (EST)

I made https:// optional. If a site only works with the http prefix, then use the full URL. --Steve (talk) 14:22, February 8, 2024 (EST)

Italicizing publishers, and absence of location for publishers

Having this template is great.

Currently, when displayed, it seems that the names of publishers are being italicized (which is incorrect), and there is no option to include the publisher's locations for citations (which is not required for some citation formats, but is for others and would be nice to have as an option for physical texts). Could these things be addressed? - Nintendo101 (talk) 17:17, February 10, 2024 (EST)

If you take a look at the examples, the publisher is italicized in the output even though the publisher parameter doesn't contain any italic syntax. So the functionality is consistent with the proposal. I'll add location. --Steve (talk) 17:40, February 10, 2024 (EST)

Thank you so much! - Nintendo101 (talk) 17:48, February 10, 2024 (EST)

Automatically grab archive date from archive.today URLs

Pages archived on archive.today can also be accessed using long links which include the date and hour at which the page was archived (example: http://archive.today/2024.02.11-143421/https://twitter.com/UniStudios/status/1753149462048800894). Is it possible to make the template automatically grab the date from these URLs similarly to how its done with Wayback Machine URLs? 1468z (talk) 09:54, February 11, 2024 (EST)

Sure thing. --Steve (talk) 12:15, February 11, 2024 (EST)

ISO codes for language

This is less a request and more some spitballing, since I'm aware it would be a somewhat time-consuming undertaking: it would be more efficient if the template was coded so you could just type a language's (2-digit) ISO code in the "language" field so it displays the entire name of that langauge. For instance, if you want to state that the source is in French, you'd simply type out
| language = fr
Of course, typing out the entire name should still be an option.
If one wants to also specify the country or region of the source alongside the language, the language's ISO code should be followed by a dash (-) and that country's (2-digit) ISO code (as it's standard), like:
| language = fr-ca
which displays "(French, Canada)".
As for which languages should be represented in the template, I guess this list could be a start. Ukrainian could be added as well since some sources on the wiki are also in that language. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 12:55, February 15, 2024 (EST)

I added support for language codes. It uses this list, so you get "Canadian French" which I think makes sense since it's adding a descriptor to the language rather than adding a location to the language parameter. Regular text still works if needed. --Steve (talk) 14:12, February 15, 2024 (EST)

Ayy thank you! -- KOOPA CON CARNE 14:32, February 15, 2024 (EST)

Video timestamps

Is there a way to incorporate the use of YouTube video timestamps, if necessary? Standardizing the use of those would also prove useful. Super Mario RPG (talk) 13:16, March 27, 2024 (EDT)

Reflist

This template had me wondering if this wiki could possibly have a reflist to adjust the citation formatting if needed, since I've seen pages with over 100 references. Super Mario RPG (talk) 21:52, March 29, 2024 (EDT)

I am a fan of the default tag formatting. --Steve (talk) 19:20, November 22, 2024 (EST)

About the period following the publishing date

Currently, if the author= parameter is not filled in, dates are displayed as (Month Day, Year).; the positioning of the period in this string is a bit odd considering there is no clause outside the brackets that it can conclude. When no authors are specified, either the brackets should be removed around the date, or the period should be placed inside the brackets. Can u do this for us, Porple? -- KOOPA CON CARNE 16:21, June 11, 2024 (EDT)

Separate website from publisher

The template currently offers a "publisher" parameter reserved for either a material's actual publisher or the website it is found in. However, sometimes, the wiki cites a book (which entails mentioning its publisher) through a website or service, such as Google Books, meaning that both the publisher and the website ought to be mentioned shoulder to shoulder. This article shows an example. Could perhaps a distinct "website=" or "site=" parameter be added to better set off these two components in such cases? Of course, if only the website is cited, I think there wouldn't be a problem if the "publisher" parameter is still used at one's discretion. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 15:26, August 30, 2024 (EDT)

Added. Thanks Porple!
@Super Mario RPG, this new addition may interest or aid you. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 16:22, August 30, 2024 (EDT)

Quotation marks for Japanese, Chinese, Korean

Is there a way to make it so corner brackets (「 」) are used instead of typical quotation marks for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean quotes? Using quotation marks looks bad and is inaccurate to how those languages are written. I noticed this especially while adding citations for TTYD names in other languages (I need to get back to that…), but I only just realized that maybe the template could be edited to remedy this. Technetium (talk) 23:13, October 5, 2024 (EDT)

I made this change. Pages will need to be updated to remove existing corner brackets and use the translation parameter (example). --Steve (talk) 01:32, October 6, 2024 (EDT)

Hold on, doesn't (South) Korean use the same quotation marks as English? I don't know, I'm just going by what Wikipedia and organickorean.com say. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 04:38, October 6, 2024 (EDT)

Whoops, you're right. My bad! Technetium (talk) 09:07, October 6, 2024 (EDT)

Add parameter that breaks off the URL from the title and removes its hyperlink

There are cases where the source used in an article is deemed unsafe for one reason or another. My browser initially blocks me from accessing the downloadable .3gp file cited here, for instance. For these cases, it might be better if this template had a parameter that removes the hyperlinks and exposes the URLs so that readers don't accidentally click or tap on the link. Of course, the ultimate remedy to this problem would be to find a less shady link for a source, but that may not always be possible. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 18:03, November 22, 2024 (EST)

The URL needs to be surrounded by nowiki tags to prevent auto-linking, and since we can't do <nowiki>{{{url}}}</nowiki>, it's best to just do this. --Steve (talk) 19:20, November 22, 2024 (EST)

Quotation mark anomaly

It's great that the template adapts around punctuation entered in the quote= paramter to accommodate the orthography of various languages. However, I noticed the template doesn't locate Danish quotation marks. These are, according to this site (ro.dsn.dk) cited by Wikipedia, essentially reverse guillemets (»...«). -- KOOPA CON CARNE 17:50, December 20, 2024 (EST)

Sites that require log-in

Can the template be updated with a parameter which specifies whether a cited website or web page requires log-in? There's a few instances on the wiki where this could be used, such as this reference to a LinkedIn profile, or the many references at the List of hashtags which link to Twitter's search page, currently accessible only to registered users. Maybe the template can automatically assign this specification to websites where registration is globally required, with users having the ability to manually input it for sites where only certain pages require registration (LinkedIn, Twitter). -- KOOPA CON CARNE 09:23, March 15, 2025 (EDT)

Website parameter, cont.

I dislike being fussy about this template and I should stress that I'm perfectly ok with much of its current configuration. However, I would like to request that the text entered in the "website" parameter be called somewhere else in the citation. Its purpose is to indicate where a cited link was fetched from, but its current positioning strongly suggests that the publishing entity used a given website to publish their work: for instance, if "publisher=" and "website=" are filled respectively with "Nintendo" and "Internet Archive", the template will display "Nintendo via Internet Archive". Now, there are cases when such an interpretation is technically true, like if the publisher was Nintendo and the website was one of their own, but this is far from universal across the template's uses.

Would it be a good idea to move the "website" parameter somewhere around "accessdate", so that a citation calling both could read "Retrieved May 1, 2010 from website.com"? If no accessdate is entered, then maybe the website parameter could produce the "Retrieved" statement on its own. Perhaps make it independent from the "publisher" parameter as well. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 20:07, March 25, 2025 (EDT), edited 20:10, March 25, 2025 (EDT)

Can we have a translator parameter?

For physical books, I like to credit the people who wrote/prepared it when available, and this includes the people who translate it. This typically isn't the same people who authored or edited the books and in other citation formats it is usually following the title and format of the cited work (e.g., "Tezuka, Takahashi, and Shigeru Miyamoto (1992). Introduction to Cheep Cheep Biology (PDF). Translated by Bill Trinen. Redmond: Nintendo of America"). I was wondering if we could have a translator parameter that would be rendered exactly as displayed in my example: right after the format and before the location, publisher, and language parameters. Is that something that can be done? - Nintendo101 (talk) 11:15, April 15, 2025 (EDT)

Requesting "tab" parameter

Electronic manuals on 3DS and Wii U are divided into tabs. The "page" parameter in this template is widely used as a surrogate for the parameter I'm requesting, but pages and tabs are not quite the same thing. Both can express a location in a source, but when you view electronic manuals as PDFs on the Nintendo site (which is an official manner to use those manuals), tabs may be spread across multiple pages of that PDF and their numbering won't correspond, potentially leading to confusion. Here's an example. -- KOOPA CON CARNE 17:10, May 9, 2025 (EDT)

What is the date for 3DS digital manuals?

So, the 3DS and Wii U had digital manuals for all games, and we cite those. Digital manuals don't have dates on them so I think I've defaulted to the release of the corresponding game. But now that I think about it, demo versions of games have the same manuals as the full games. Meaning, should the dates of digital manuals be credited to the release date of the demo for the game instead? Salmancer (talk) 18:54, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

One usually isn't expected to provide anything more granular than the year for cited texts, and fortunately demos are often released the same year the games they are for come out. If one is uncomfortable about that level of imprecision, there is no harm in doing "circa YEAR" in the "date" section for the year the game it is with came out because, at minimum, all eGuides (if not, the vast majority - I do not personally know of any example otherwise) came out the same year their games did. If all of this info truly is an unknown, then one should only fill out the "accessdate" for the date they are accessing the information or file. - Nintendo101 (talk) 22:55, May 29, 2025 (EDT)

More specifications for quotes in other languages

I think that it would be useful for these features to be added to the template:

• Ignore the check for symbol 《 at the beginning of the quote if the language is set to any Chinese variants (Any ISO code starting with zh, as well as yue). There should be more, but these should cover all usages for now). Double angle brackets《...》in Chinese are used to mark titles of literature and artistic works only, and are not used as quotation marks, so the check falsely applies if a book title appears at the start of a quote; however, since other languages might still use the same brackets for quotations, the check should remain for other languages.
  • This can be achieved by swapping 《 in the source code with {{#switch:{{#explode:{{lc:{{{language}}}}}|-|0}}|zh|yue=|《}}. There may be more streamlined solutions to this, but this is the best I can think of.
• If the language ISO code denotes an unspecified variant of Chinese (zh), Taiwan Chinese (zh-tw), Hong Kong Chinese (zh-hk) and Cantonese (yue), the quote should be enclosed in the same quotation marks「...」as traditional Chinese and Japanese.
• It would also be nice for the template to adopt other types of quotation marks for quotes in other languages, when the standard quotation mark differs from the English equivalent. Some notable ones include: „...” for Dutch (nl), „...“ for non-Swiss German (de), « ... » (spaced with non-breaking space) for non-Swiss French (fr and fr-ca), «...» for Swiss French and German (fr-ch, de-ch), Greek (el), Italian (it), non-Brazilian Portuguese (pt, pt-pt), Russian (ru) and European Spanish (es, es-es).

Would it be possible to implement these changes? Thank you! Dominoes (talk) 05:21, September 14, 2025 (EDT)

A bit of a follow-up regarding the previous suggestion, as I consulted more people on the subject afterwards. It would be nice to revert the quotation mark styles to English "..." if the language is set to:

• Unspecified variants of Spanish es and Portuguese pt (European Spanish es-esand European Portuguese pt-pt should keep using guillemets.)
• Dutch nl

Thank you very much! Dominoes (talk) 00:06, September 26, 2025 (EDT)