@Kiwichris, I made this edit [1] to make the refs the same per WP:CITESTYLE. You reverted that:[2]. Why is having 1 References and all the others Notes "improve referencing"? There is no good reason to have one sfn-ref mixed in with others in an article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is more than one now, and I'm sure more will be added as the article grows. Kiwichris (talk) 07:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And per WP:CITESTYLE and WP:CITEVAR new ones should not be sfn in this article. I will change again, and please follow established citing going forward per guideline. And again, the Notes/References division makes no sense as it was done, compare for example Shakespeare authorship question. Waikato Times is also a reference. Other editors, please comment if you have an opinion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:10, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm having trouble following your logic, Gråbergs Gråa Sång. This article was using shortened footnotes until you changed that on 12 November. And now you are accusing Kiwichris of changing to a non-established citation style? I'm trying to assume good faith but this is bordering on disruptive behaviour. Would you please self-revert? Using shortened footnotes is an appropriate citation style. Schwede66 08:32, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Schwede66 My logic is that the article had one sfn reference (Grant, and it was used for 3 cites) that I changed on 11 November (says my edit-history to me[3], I'm guessing a time-zone-thing), but 30+ (I think) others. That makes sfn not "established" in this article per WP:CITEVAR. Using shortened footnotes is an appropriate citation style, yes, but not mixed in with others, per WP:CITESTYLE guidance it's all or nothing.

Since I think I'm right and reasonable (!), I will not self-revert. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, does the Notes/References division you want me to revert to [4] look WP-good to you? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:02, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve written ten articles that have passed as GAs (see my user page if you are interested) and six of those use the citation style that this article had until you changed it. You appear to misunderstand what it is that the guidelines say, or are you telling me that those six GA reviewers all got it wrong? Would you now please self-revert, Gråbergs Gråa Sång? Schwede66 14:53, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, take Kathy Lynch for example. IMO the only sfn ref that article has should be done ref-tag style (with in-text Template:Rp), making it land under "References" like all the others. It would also get rid of the "Citations" section. We tend to use ref/cite/source interchangeably when we discuss, but as I understand it, citations are the in-text hyperlink thingies, to have a section titled that for a lone ref doesn't look right to me and per my reading doesn't follow WP:CITESTYLE. Doesn't it look weird to you? I don't know if GA/FA-people care about that, but I'm pretty sure I've seen them asking for consistent cite-style at times.

For another WP:OTHERCONTENT comparison, compare FA William Shakespeare where every cite is sfn-style (not counting a few ones no one has bothered to put in in sfn-shape, probably because the editor who added them didn't know how). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, it doesn’t look weird to me. Schwede66 15:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good enough. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The article, as it existed before the first edit by Gråbergs Gråa Sång (as far as I can find) had a logical reason to use sfn for one source. The book by Grant, Anderton: His Life and Times, was the only source that had more than one inline citation to it. Also, different pages were cited each time, so it would not have been sufficient to just use the |name= parameter of the <ref> tag. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:59, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is what Template:Rp is for. And no it wasn't, check "Young, Audrey (6 August 2006)" in your link. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May I draw your attention to the template's documentation? ((rp)) is an alternative to the method of using shortened footnotes. Please note the word "alternative". It does not say it’s the only way to quote specific pages. Schwede66 16:38, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, we can use one variation or the other. If we ref an article sfn-citestyle, we note pagenumbers the sfn-way. If we ref an article ref-tag-citestyle, we use the page-param or the rp-template, whichever we think is needed per specific ref. The Poor, Christopher J pdf could atm be done with a "77-81" param and skip the rp. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:47, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Here from WP:Citing sources. The purpose of CITEVAR is to stop editors edited warring other the 'right way' to reference. It doesn't stop editors from adding references that don't match the current article style, but is does allow for is imposing one style of referencing in an article. Which referencing style to use should be a matter of talk page consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:00, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi @ActivelyDisinterested, thanks for commenting. Would you say this [5] counts as changing referencing style, or is it something else? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:15, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  To butt in, from my point of view that was not a change a referencing style, it was a normalization of an off-style citation to the citation format used in all the rest of the article, which is what WP:CITEVAR instructs us to do in the first place. But see below for an alternative to using ((Rp)) which was always a rather clumsy kluge. It was necessary when I invented it, but it has been surpassed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:25, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  It's simply imposing a consistent referencing style, exception three of CITEVAR under "Generally considered helpful". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• There is no reason to impose ((sfn)) citation style, which is an unnecessary complication, for just one or a couple of sources that are reused, especially when plain use of <ref> completely dominates in an article. And ((rp)) is basically obsolete (and I say that as the creator of the template). If you want to cite the same source multiple times at different pages, a solution requiring no additional templates at all is provided by the |ref= parameter of the citation templates. E.g. first do <ref>((cite book |last=Grant |first=David |title=Anderton: His Life and Times |date=2022 |publisher=Te Herenga Waka University Press |location=Wellington |isbn=9781776920563 |ref=Grant |page=123))</ref> and later do <ref>[[#Grant|Grant (2022)]], p. 234.</ref> This system is more robust than ((sfn)), which doesn't support any annotations; with |ref= you can so something like <ref>[[#Grant|Grant (2022)]], p. 234; citing: ((cite journal |... additional citation details here for original source)).</ref> The |ref= approach requires no dual-section referencing. And using "Notes" as the heading name in either section when you do dual-section referencing is a terrible idea, because that usually refers to non-citation footnotes. If you're going to do dual-sectional referencing, try "References" and "Sources", or "Citations" and "Sources". PS: ActivelyDisinterested above is correct that WP:CITEVAR can't be used to suppress addition of valid sources just because they're not in a format you personally prefer or which better matches the rest of the article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:25, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @SMcCandlish So, with the above method, one doesn't/shouldn't name the ref? And when will you get this "re-use" into reftoolbar/VE etc? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:33, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There wouldn't be a need to name the ref unless you were going to cite it again at p. 123, which is what the original citation is using (in my example above; I didn't bother to look what was actually used in the article). I don't use VE or reftoolbar, so I have no idea.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:40, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  My thought was that if this is a good system, people should know about it. How will, for example, a newbie who's studying WP:TUTORIAL or WP:REFERENCING, Template:Rp or Template:Sfn find this option? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:52, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Ok, I edited the article's Grant-ref per above recommendation:[6]. Afaict, it works. On the plus-side, there are no in-text page numbers, sfn-style, an no extra ref-section, reftag-style. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:06, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  You can do the same with ((harvnb)) (or one of the other harv templates, and have error messaging of something is wrong. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:14, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Yes it involves an additional template, but Category:Pages with broken anchors shows 66k+ articles with broken anchors as they don't produce any visible erros. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:19, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I still don't get this demand for a consistent citation style of only full or shortened footnotes, articles on Wikipedia using a combination of both are ubiquitous. Gråbergs Gråa Sång's above claim that "it's all or nothing" seems like an overliteral interpretation. I agree with SMcCandlish that "References" or "Citations" are better headings than "Notes" for dual-sectional referencing. Kiwichris (talk) 01:38, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  And I don't get the wish to add sfn-type cites to an article that had none:[7]. So our incomprehension is mutual. Literal reading or not, guideline and MOS:REFERENCES ("Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article.") advice against it. Possibly we also have a bit of a mutual WP:ILIKEIT situation going on. IMO, a good "headings" for sfn-style articles is "References", with subsections "Citations" and "Sources" below that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  The reason there were no sfn-type citations in the article before I added the info from the David Grant book was they were then not needed, as all citations were for a single webpage/article. With the Grant (and later Poor) sources added, more precise footnotes were needed to add page numbers to ensure the referencing is verifiable. Hence the introduction of shortened footnotes (Jc3s5h has also pointed this out earlier). The advantage that the sfn template has over manually created anchor references is that it is a standardised template that alerts users to inconsistencies and errors automatically to avoid any unwitting depreciation of the referencing. Kiwichris (talk) 09:06, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  So we disagree on the "needed". [8] As I see it, both works, and ref-tag was the established cite-style. IMO, finding the named refs in reftoolbar and VE is also an advantage. As is having one section for refs instead of two. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:14, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Obviously a bit late but ((sfn))-style, so inclusive of ((harvnb)), author dates templates are much easier than manually keeping track of custom anchor names. It is also very useful to have automatic checks for anchor typos. You can just use ((sfn)) in invocations such as ((sfn|Gruen|1995|p=BLAH, citing ((harvnb|Dio|1.2.3.)))) to provide contextual details. Ifly6 (talk) 01:50, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  IMO named references are not difficult to work with, they are easily accessible in both reftoolbar and VE (once you learn they're there). I also think the sfn-types are generally trickier for new-ish editors, and that perhaps many editors like the academic-ish layout/look of the sfn-system. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  You can always use harv templates with refnames / named references <ref name="Gruen1995p17">((harvnb|Gruen|1995|p=17)), any additional context or quote as text, even more templates.</ref>
  

  It is useful if you already have an inline reference to Gruen already, but then want to quote them somewhere else as well. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:28, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There is consensus that the reference style that we had is supported by editors, with Gråbergs Gråa Sång's view an outlier. I have asked you three times before to self-revert. Will you do so now? Schwede66 17:45, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  @Schwede66, you consider me an outlier though I had the support of @SMcCandlish and @ActivelyDisinterested, and consider this a 4-3 consensus for your side? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:47, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  And wasn't that 2 times? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 23:56, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There is clearly not a consensus to do what Schwede66 wants. This page was consistently using plain <ref> citations, and someone (not going to dig through history to find out) introduced a completely different refercing system, the ((sfn)) style, for a single source used twice, and then unhelpfully forked the References section into two sections. That was pointless and was done without consensus, and the WP:CITEVAR procedure is to remove the inconsistent style someone injected and replace it with consistent citations that match the rest of them. ((Sfn)) makes sense at pages where numerous sources are being cited multiple times, but it is an unnecessary and unhelpful complication for both readers and editors when injected to handle a single source or just a couple of them, especially when we have multiple other methods for handling this that don't result in contrary templates and multiple refs sections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:00, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I can help with that. That "someone" was Kiwichris on 4 November when he first introduced a book source and cited three separate pages from different areas of the article. Here's the diff. That seems a very reasonable edit to me and I would have done exactly the same. Schwede66 00:11, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  It seems that both sides see themselves as the common sense supporters here. If discussion has mostly died down, I think WP:RFCL is the way to go now. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 00:32, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  There's nothing in policy against Gråbergs Gråa Sång edit, and ultimately it changed nothing. The same content is verifiable by the same sources. The point of CITEVAR is to stop pointless discussions. If the article grows in the future maybe there'll be cause to change the referencing style, but couldn't this just be forgotten and everyone go back to something more useful? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:52, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  In addition to WP:CITEVAR, see WP:SFN: Short citations can be written manually, or by using either the ((sfn)) or ((|tlx|harvnb)) templates or the ((r)) referencing template. (Note that templates should not be added without consensus to an article that already uses a consistent referencing style.) While Kiwichris was certainly free to add more citations, it was a mistake to diverge from the established citation style without establishing a consensus to do so. And yes, the point of WP:CITEVAR and reminders like the one in WP:SFN are to forestall citation format warring. Someone like Kiwichris adding a citation in a format "foreign" to the article should simply be (and by Gråbergs Gråa Sång was) normalized to the format used in the rest of the article; it is not an excuse for another editor like Schwede66 to decide there is magically a new consensus in favor of the format used in a one-off edit by Kiwichris. This discussion literally should not be happening, because CITEVAR and SFN were quite clear to begin with, and their point is to prevent this kind of conflict from arising. in the first place.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:06, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Whether sfn is used or not, can we at least have the footnotes for the Poor source in the same format as the Grant footnotes? Both require page numbers. This is especially pertinent given that Gråbergs Gråa Sång's initial objection is about consistency... Kiwichris (talk) 05:45, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Absolutely, I changed the Grant because I wanted to try SMcCandlish's suggestion [9] above. I don't have a preference on that (let's call it the rp and |ref= versions), and nobody else voiced one, except SMcCandlish, so I'll revert that change. Young, Grant and Poor now match. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:23, 24 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]