Template talk:Bluebook website

Timestamp

If someone more skilled then myself has time, the 20th edition of Bluebook requires a timestamp for access-dates for citations of internet sources. Here is an example from the quick reference of the correct date format: (Jan. 29, 2009, 10:04 AM),

Noting the comma after the year, no period for the AM and the comma after the parenthetical. It's not a huge deal, but Bluebook is a very demanding citation system, and it would be nice to have the precise format available. Seraphimsystem (talk) 18:21, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Lack of support for archival information

I recently wrote the article Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach (2013). After I had published my first draft, it came to my attention that I was supposed to use Bluebook citations, so I went back and changed out {{cite journal}} and some instances of {{cite web}}/{{cite news}} to {{bluebook journal}} and {{bluebook website}} respectively. I ran into a problem, though, with sources that included archival links. Consider, for instance:

Musgrave, Jane (2014-03-27). "Federal judge refuses to order Riviera Beach to pay Fane Lozman to replace destroyed floating home". The Palm Beach Post. Archived from the original on 2022-04-07. Retrieved 2022-04-07.

Both the fact that the current source is paywalled and the fact that an archive exists would be obscured. Now, I could get around the latter half by separately using {{webarchive}} (although that throws a warning when linking to newspapers.com, but that's a separate issue I guess), but we'd still lose the information that the primary link is paywalled. There's various other metadata conveyed in {{cite web}}/{{cite news}} that is useful as well, such as source language and quotes. (I wound up just including a quote manually after {{bluebook journal}} at one point.)

My question—and I'll pose it now to Wugapodes, or later at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Legal if they're not around to answer—is: Is the omission of these parameters specifically because of the peculiarities of Bluebook citation format, or can some/all of them be safely added? If the former, is there any way to compromise at least on the URL metadata? Say, an additional plain-English sentence after the formal citation? ("URL is subscription-only; archived version exists at ...".) -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 22:17, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I haven't checked the Bluebook but given their, er, more archaic and legalistic stylings I doubt they have guidance on archival links and paywall information. That said, I think it's a good idea to add them to the template even if it's not perfect Bluebook. We're an online encyclopedia, not a law review, so taking a few liberties when it serves our purpose is reasonable. I'll let you know when I have a sandbox draft ready. — Wug·a·po·des​ 18:47, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin: I've got it set up in the sandbox. You can see a few examples at Template:Bluebook website/testcases. Let me know your thoughts so I can update the template or revise as needed. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:02, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: Thanks for getting to this so quickly! Two questions/thoughts:

1. Is the comma before "(last updated)"/"(last visited)" (present in the live version as well) a bug or a feature?
2. Could we also include a |url-status= like the CS1 templates have? Then if set to "dead", the primary link changes to that and "original link" appears where "archived copy" would. And then for "usurped"/"unfit", just the archived link as primary without an "original link", maybe?

-- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 00:40, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin (1) bug, now fixed (2) sure, see Template:Bluebook website/testcases for those changes as well. (3) as a bonus, I've added error messages while I was in there which respect a user's cs1-* CSS settings. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:08, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: Looks great! Thanks so much! One more thing is, should this format dates based on page-level MDY/DMY preferences like CS1 does? Doesn't need to happen now; I was planning to do it myself at some point anyways, but since we're here, might as well bring it up. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she/they) 19:35, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tamzin I'm not sure that's possible in template syntax since the only information available is what's passed to the template. Lua modules have access to more data which is why I think CS1 is able to interpret page-level date preferences. Having the option to format dates would be useful though, and it could be something to add even if not automatically interpreted from the page-level info. I started using {{date}} for formatting which takes an output format. Having that be a parameter sounds like a simple-enough change. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)