Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-08-01/Tips and tricks

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• Thank you so much for including the caveats that script-generated citations must be reviewed and frequently cleaned up. It's an important step that often goes overlooked. The citation generation scripts are powerful tools that can save a lot of time – and the stable identifiers tend to work much more accurately than the URLs – but not verifying their output afterwards is like following a recipe you've never made and bringing it to service without tasting it. Folly Mox (talk) 06:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Another useful tool, for sorting out existing citations which have been created using Visual Editor, is User:Nardog/RefRenamer. It looks for the references with "names" such as ":0" and offers editable suggestions for human-friendly names for the refs. The guidance at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Repeated citations says "To help with page maintenance, it is recommended that the text of the name have a connection to the inline citation or footnote, for example "author year page", but VE ignores this guidance. This tool makes it easy to improve on VE's work. PamD 07:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  Now mentioned. With apologies to @Nardog: for the initial omission. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks @Headbomb: scope_creep^Talk 08:51, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
• Great article! However, I find that the OAbot Toolforge link always returns a 502 error on my device. Have anyone else had gotten it to work lately? Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:57, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Ca: Should be fixed now. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:02, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've noticed an increase in references with |author=August 2 and other clearly misplaced information due to these tools—or rather, due to incorrect usage of these excellent tools. No doubt the tools can get more sophisticated (e.g. never putting "[month] [number]" in an author parameter) but ultimately human oversight is always needed. — Bilorv (talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

  I've asked at Citoid talk for this extremely basic error checking, but the will doesn't seem to be there, possibly because, as I understand it, the WMF has a single contractor in charge of the codebase. The kind people who maintain reFill also don't have the time to implement it. The citation templates do populate a maintenance category for this genre of problem data, Category:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list‎ (55,799), which I've asked to be elevated to error status, but also to no action. Folly Mox (talk) 20:17, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Regarding "... if you don't know that copy-pasting/closely paraphrasing things from sources is bad ...", I think a qualification is needed - when done for larger amounts of text. I believe that if the information from a single sentence in a source is being added to a Wikipedia article, not only is closely paraphrasing acceptable - it's really the only option. You can (and should) change a word or two, and/or rearrange a few words, focusing on what's factual within the sentence, since facts can't be copyrighted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:16, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Ah, like "The leaves of the plant are short and spiky." Very limited ways to rephrase that and keep the sam meaning, moreso if the leaves are described with a technical term like "rugose". Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 19:22, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

"The plant has short, spiky leaves." It's exceedingly rare that I've written a sentence that exactly matches a source (I'm thinking of one case that was "[subject] attended [long university name]"). Anyway, maybe the point is that close paraphrasing and copyright violations are only properties of a whole text, not a property of a single clause or few words. — Bilorv (talk) 19:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Point, though think it's harder to invent these kind of things. But think the idea matters more than the example: there are some very basic phrasings that are likely to be maintained because that's just how you say that kind of fact. "He died in 1897 in London." or something like "He was born in 1850. His father was an electrician.". Simple declarative statements. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.5% of all FPs.} 07:41, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

• Thanks Headbomb for the very useful compilation of citation tools. I was looking for good way of identify duplicate references. It looks like reFill could fill the bill. I will try it out. Cheers. Boghog (talk) 20:11, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

You can also run WP:AWB on an article, and it will combine duplicate references if other named references are used in an article. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:32, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• BTW, for those who tried OABot and it was giving a 503 error, the issue is now solved. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:01, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've joined in very late, but still, thank you so much for the precious advice! I've already started using CiteHighlighter, but I think RefRenamer will definitely come in handy for me, too! @Headbomb and Novem Linguae: If you don't mind, I've got just one more question about the former plug-in: how can I contribute to the expansion of the pools of sources recognized by the script, and especially the one provided by WP:NPPSG? As a non-native English speaker, I'd like to help rate more international sources, focusing on Italian and European media. I'm also very interested in adding entries by topics such as pop culture, sports (mostly association football), religion and science! Oltrepier (talk) 14:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

  Hey @Oltrepier. Thanks for the ping. CiteHighlighter gets its sources from pages such as RSP, NPPSG, and WikiProject reliable sources lists. And NPPSG itself is a summary of RSN discussions. I'd prefer to keep the sources for CiteHighlighter some kind of consensus process that has at least 2 people involved, rather than 1 person. Hope that makes sense. Oh and I sync CiteHighlighter to NPPSG randomly every couple months, so if new stuff gets added there (following the RSN with at least 2 participants criteria mentioned above), it'll eventually make its way into CiteHighlighter. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:18, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Novem Linguae: Yes, it definitely does! I know how crucial it is to build consensus around the reliability (or unreliability) of a source, so I'll definitely respect that process whenever I'll propose or ask for advice on certain newspapers/magazines. Thank you for reaching out, by the way! Oltrepier (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

• Can any of these tools also automatically include the archived version of the source URL into the formatted reference? rootsmusic (talk) 04:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  You may be interested in WP:IABOT, which is a website you visit, feed it the article you want it to add archive links to, then that triggers a bot to go add archive links for you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:07, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

• @Headbomb: Please add WP:ProveIt. rootsmusic (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

  Signpost articles do not usually undergo major additions after publication. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:18, 5 September 2023 (UTC)