Forum:SH:Social media citation templates standardization

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2023 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:Social media citation templates standardization

Hey, Nano here, still bothering you with web stuff! This time, I would like to see if everyone would be in agreement to bring some standardization to our dozen of social media citation templates. It's something that have been bothering me since I first was acquainted with our original SM templates (before I added more myself ^^), and the recent effort by Cade to standardize YouTube and WebCite templates inspired me to finally deal with this.

Standardization would make those templates easier to use to all editors, but especially new ones, for which citation templates can often be confusing, especially because of the lack of standardization between those templates!

Once we're in agreement, it would fall to bot operators to reflect the change on the templates. I don't think there's any need for a CT vote to validate changes discussed here. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Concerned templates

  • {{ArtStation}}:
    {{ArtStation|url=|text=|subdomain=|name=|profile=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{Blogspot}}:
    {{Blogspot|blogspoturl=|url=|blogspotname=|postname=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{DeviantArt}}:
    {{DeviantArt|url=|text=|name=|profile=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{DiscordCite}}:
    {{DiscordCite|discordname=|name=|date=|quote=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{FacebookCite}}:
    {{FacebookCite|profilelink=|url=|author=|description=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{Flickr}}:
    {{Flickr|url=|text=|author=|date=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{InstagramCite}}:
    {{InstagramCite|profilelink=|url=|author=|description=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{LinkedIn}}:
    {{LinkedIn|url=|text=|date=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{Reddit}}:
    {{Reddit|url=|thread=|user=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{Tumblr}}:
    {{Tumblr|tumblrurl=|url=|tumblrname=|postname=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}
  • {{Twitter}}:
    {{Twitter|username=|url=|name=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=}}

Name of parameters

Several parameters are already harmonized accross the board: |url=, |date=, |quote=, |archivedate=, |archiveurl=, |archivefile=, |nobackup=, as well as |thread= used by Reddit and also harmonized with others forum citation templates like {{JCFcite}}. Bellow is a list of conflicting parameters used in the templates above, sorted by functions. The standardization proposed follow the pattern used by {{WebCite}}.

  • The title of publication: |text=, |postname=
    • Standardization: |text=
  • The subdomain of the URL (ex: starwars.fandom.com has for subdomain "starwars" and fandom.com as domain): |subdomain=, |blogposturl=, |tumblrurl=
    • Standardization: |subdomain=
  • The name of the blog: |blogpostname=, |tumblrname=
    • Standardization: |blog=
  • The name of the entity (person, company, etc): |name=, |author=
    • Standardization: |author=
  • The part url that identify the entity (the first segment of the path after the domain): |profile=, |discordname=, |profilelink=, |username=
    • Standardization: |profile=

We should also ensure that each template support |nolive= (with the exception of Discord, who don't need it), and include it in the documentation. This parameter allows to identify if a web document is no longer online.

In regard to {{Twitch}}, I did not included it on the list, as its parameters (video, text, channel and channelname) are already aligned with {{YouTube}}. On could argue that we could push standardization so that Twitch and YouTube also use the same parameters as other (video = url, channel = profile, channelname = author), but I'm neutral in this regard. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Absolutely, it'd be fabulous to have them be standardised. OOM 224 (he/him) 17:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Description

Now, this parameter, found on InstagramCite and FacebookCite templates, has always been at odd with myself. I don't understand its necessity, and I think it was born out of the will to have a text to use to insert the link to the page cited. However, all others templates (including Twitter, who is very similar) have found another way to do so. I simply think it would be best to remove it altogether. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • While I do agree that this parameter should only be optional as it has little use in most instances, I'm wondering if this could be useful it has been filled in (e.g. "Author confirms that X was inspired by Y and made in Z") but the cited post is no longer live and the quote parameter doesn't provide the actual information, such as if the information is only given by an image in the post that is no longer accessible. Then again, perhaps in such a fringe case, the relevant information could just be added beside the citation template (like this). OOM 224 (he/him) 17:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Position of parameters

I think the best approach is to follow a pattern similar with {{WebCite}}, as follow: 

{{Template|subdomain=|profile=|url=|blog=|text=|author=|date=|quote=|archivedate=|archiveurl=|archivefile=|nobackup=|nolive=}}

Note that this is not a unique pattern that should be use on EVERY social media template, but one that use all possible standardized parameters to provide a hierarchy for all of those templates to follow).

Subdomain, profile and url are ordered that way because it's the most natural order, as the full URL would be like this: https://subdomain.domain/profile/url (keep in mind that "url" here mean the rest of the url, and that the domain itself is hardcoded in the template). NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm not fussed about the placements, but the proposed standardised placements look good to me. OOM 224 (he/him) 17:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Name of templates

Simply, I don't think there is any need to include "Cite" (as in DiscordCite, FacebookCite and InstagramCite). In fact, the only proper reason to include "Cite" is for when there is a need for disambiguation between two templates, usually a navbox and a citation templates, such as {{Insider}} and {{InsiderCite}}.

Note that I am not saying we should also be removing Cite from WebCite and BookCite, as Web and Book would just be too broad as templates name, in my opinion... And {{Book}} is already an infobox template anyway. NanoLuukeCloning Facility 14:39, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Great work on this, Nano! The proposal looks pretty clean-cut, and keeping the parameter names and placements consitent would indeed make them easier to use, imo, without affecting their appearance on actual pages. I also don't mind not applying this change to video-based citations like Twitch and YouTube since they all seem to follow the same format. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 00:50, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
  • Yeah, we don't need them here. OOM 224 (he/him) 17:24, 15 November 2023 (UTC)