Template talk:Harvard citation with colon text

Core update

Given the commonality in markup for the author-date templates, I have developed a meta-template at {{Harvard citation/core}}. See Template talk:Sfn#Core update. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

 Done ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:46, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Mismatched brackets

The current (2012-06-25) template has

  |BracketYearLeft=(
  |BracketRight=)

Surely that should be BracketYearRight! Right now the template looks like this: Best & Strange (1992). Notice the lack of linkification on the closing parenthesis. --Quuxplusone (talk) 19:18, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The right bracket is outside the link because it follows the page number, which should also be outside the link.

{{harvcoltxt|Best|Strange|1992|p=123}} → Best & Strange (1992:123)

which expands to

[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange (1992]]<nowiki>:</nowiki>123)

--Redrose64 (talk) 20:25, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

This follows the behavior of the template before I updated it to core. Suggestions? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:52, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

 Note: I've moved the discussion branch that I started to Template talk:Harvard citation text where it's more relevant, as Redrose64 pointed out. — Scott • talk 11:09, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

IMO, this would look much better to have the link either include the page number (and the closing paren) or exclude the year (and the opening paren). Thus, either "Smith (2005, p. 25)" or "Smith (2005, p. 25)". Since apparently there are sometimes additional links placed in the page number, the latter would be the way to go. But the former might also be an option (when there are known to be no links in the page number, such as when there is no page number). —Toby Bartels (talk) 10:07, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This just came up in a GA review, and for sure it does look strange to have the left paren linked and the right one not. I don't know which alternate would be best; perhaps we should get more views on this? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:04, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Is GA really that picky? FA merely calls for consistency within the article:

consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended. The use of citation templates is not required.

- I would not expect the GA standards to be any higher. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:30, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

No, GA is not that finicky. This came up because the inconsistency looks so odd. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

If it is desired to have both the author and year linked, and have the year in parentheses, it is necessary for the opening parenthesis to be part of the author/year link, because a single link cannot be split into two active areas. If it is also desirable to have the closing parenthesis in the same colour as the opening parenthesis, there are two possible ways: (i) it needs to be placed in such a manner that it is semantically part of the author/year link - which means moving it before the page number so that the page number doesn't also form part of that same link:

i)[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange (1992)]]:123 → Best & Strange (1992):123

or (ii) we need to add some fake colouring:

ii a)[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange <span style="color:black;">(</span>1992]]:123) → Best & Strange (1992:123)

ii b)[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange (1992]]:123<span style="color:#0645ad;">)</span> → Best & Strange (1992:123)

both of which will almost certainly contravene WP:CONTRAST "links should clearly be identifiable as a link to our readers". The (ii b) example also assumes that the blue colour of links is the same across Wikipedia - it's not: not only do the links change to purple when you visit them (and this closing parenthesis cannot change in that manner), but the precise shades of blue and purple links differ between skins: Vector skin, unvisited; MonoBook skin, unvisited; Vector skin, visited; MonoBook skin, visited. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:03, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

  I like the result of iia, but don't like all the special machinations to make it work.

  The basic problem seems to be the conflict between: 1) general scholarly practice that specification of page (etc.) immediately follows the year (date), and that when the year is in parentheses so should the specification, and 2) our sense that when a work is identified by author-date the specific page should not be in the link. Alternately, do we really need to have the year in the link? E.g., could we do something like:

iii) [[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange]] (1992:123) → Best & Strange (1992:123) Modified! 20:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

  That is, highlight only the author(s) (retaining the year in the CITEREF). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:58, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

This is generally fine provided that only one work by Best & Strange has been used in the article. However, links should be intuitive: if two have been used - let's assume that the other one was published in 1994 - it's not obvious that the links are different, since the year is not part of the linked text

[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange]] (1992):123 → Best & Strange (1992):123

[[#CITEREFBestStrange1994|Best & Strange]] (1994):456 → Best & Strange (1994):456

But your example (iii) has the closing parenthesis before the colon, as does my suggestion (i), so it's a simple matter to put the year and its parentheses inside the link too:

[[#CITEREFBestStrange1992|Best & Strange (1992)]]:123 → Best & Strange (1992):123

[[#CITEREFBestStrange1994|Best & Strange (1994)]]:456 → Best & Strange (1994):456

--Redrose64 (talk) 11:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Ooops! Meant to put the page number inside the parentheses. (Else there isn't a problem.) It seems to me that as long as the text is clear as to which work is cited — as in "Best & Strange (1992:123); Best & Strange (1994:456)" — and the link itself (the CITEREF..) is correct, perhaps it does not matter that the part of the reference that is highlighted to indicate the link is identical for both references. For sure, I would rather highlight the year as well, but, given that there is a conflict and something has to give, is that a possible trade-off? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Ping! This still hasn't been resolved. It looks very odd and needs to be corrected one way or another. As I see it, there are three possible solutions while keeping the page number within the parentheses:

1. Link the name only: Best & Strange (1992:123)
2. Link the year only: Best & Strange (1992:123)
3. Link the entire reference: Best & Strange (1992:123)

It seems that #1 has support, #2 hasn't been mentioned (although I might prefer it since it links to the reference rather than an article about the authors as one might expect, but I'm not an expert on the Harvard referencing system(, and #3 has some objections on the basis that the page number shouldn't be linked.

Whatever the case, could someone please do something to fix this ongoing issue? Thanks! —sroc 💬 09:24, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

In fact, linking the year only would be consistent with {{Harvard citations}}. —sroc 💬 09:33, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

This is still unresolved. I strongly support option 2, which hasn't been discussed much yet.

As I see it, the author's name inline refers to the author, not to their publication. The non-inline variants are different, because in that case "(Author Year)" both refer directly to the publication. {{Harvard citations}}'s existence supports this logic. —WOFall (talk) 01:33, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Rename?

I love this template, but the name is really terrible. Would it be possible to rename it to something better than Harvcoltxt? - Ɍưɳŋınɢ 15:37, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Like what? It's part of a series:

Markup	Renders as
The sky is blue {{harv|Smith|2005|p=25}}	The sky is blue (Smith 2005, p. 25)
The sky is blue {{harvcol|Smith|2005|p=25}}	The sky is blue (Smith 2005:25)
The sky is blue, according to {{harvtxt|Smith|2005|p=25}}	The sky is blue, according to Smith (2005, p. 25)
The sky is blue, according to {{harvcoltxt|Smith|2005|p=25}}	The sky is blue, according to Smith (2005:25)

• Smith, J (2005). Facts about the weather. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

{{harv}} Harvard; {{harvcol}} Harvard with colon; {{harvtxt}} Harvard in-text; {{harvcoltxt}} Harvard with colon in-text. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:29, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Ooooooh. I didn't know that. Can you add it.... somewhere to the documentation? - Ɍưɳŋınɢ 18:51, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It's already there, or something very similar anyway. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:25, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

consolidating and abandoning Template:Harvard citation/core

Please see Module_talk:Footnotes#consolidating_and_abandoning_Template:Harvard_citation/core.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

broken harv link reporting

Please see the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § broken harv link reporting where a broken harv-link reporting scheme is proposed.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:46, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Authors without primary surnames

The template seems to primarily cite authors by their family surnames in Western name order. But what if this is not always appropriate, or even possible? For example, take Icelandic names. For Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson, the last name Rögnvaldsson is not a surname, but a patronymic, and it is more appropriate to refer to him primarily as Eiríkur. There are also authors who may have only one name, which is common in countries like Indonesia, and they won't even have a surname. Or people where, even in English, the surname comes first before the given name, as in most Chinese names, Korean names and Vietnamese names. In these cases, how do you use this template to cite a name such that names appear in the correct ordering, and the appropriate primary name (when not the surname) is to be given? The instructions seem silent about that. - Gilgamesh (talk) 00:22, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

This template uses whatever name you give it whether it be a patronymic, a surname, or just a name; typically one name per person. As long as this template uses the same name or names as the target long-form citation, what you choose to use as the names is not defined. So you can write:

{{harvcoltxt|Eiríkur|2021}} → Eiríkur (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Rögnvaldsson|2021}} → Rögnvaldsson (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson|2021}} → Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Ai|2021}} → Ai (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Ai Weiwei|2021}} → Ai Weiwei (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Smith|2021}} → Smith (2021)

{{harvcoltxt|Bob Smith|2021}} → Bob Smith (2021)

cs1|2 templates use the content of |lastn= or |authorn= as the name(s). If that doesn't work (because Ai Weiwei – |last=Ai |first=Weiwei – will render as Ai, Weiwei) then write |author=Ai Weiwei and |ref={{sfnref|Ai|2021}} and then use {{harvcoltxt|Ai|2021}}.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

All right, I'll look into this. Thanks for the prompt response. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:16, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Years before 1 CE

Is there a way to use this template if the publication year of the source is before 1 CE? I'm editing an existing article that uses this citation style, and I'd like to use this template to cite Euclid's Elements which was published c. 300 BCE. The following don't work:

• {{harvcoltxt|Euclid|300 BCE|loc=XIII.18}} (Treats "300 BCE" as an author)
• {{harvcoltxt|Euclid|year=300 BCE|loc=XIII.18}} (Ignores the parameter)

Is there a way I am supposed to do this? AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 17:27, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Are you actually consulting an original Elements from c. 300BCE? If you are not, then use the publication date of the facsimile/translation/whatever that you are consulting.

Minimum year supported by the templates that use Module:Footnotes or that use Module:Citation/CS1 is 100CE.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:37, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at

 You are invited to join the discussion at Module talk:Footnotes § loc, at. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:45, 4 May 2024 (UTC)