Template talk:Cite EB1922

Clutter

PBS, I undid your edit. There is no need to provide the means to set the encyclopedia, edition, etc., since the template is not meant to handle those situations, and this code makes the template more difficult to maintain. Displaying in red a notice if the title is not specified is cute, but the template is sufficiently ugly in its presentation if this data is omitted that I think any user will get the idea. This is the only portion of your edit that seemed worthwhile, but it is just a question of elegance of presentation and it is just as well omitted. You have warned me of the dire consequences of omitting the HIDE_PARAMETER variable, but have never shown an example. The sandbox is there, please provide an example of a malfunction if you wish to clutter the code with this. I have used this template, and others like it, for years and have not had problems. Bob Burkhardt (talk) 17:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

You have removed parameters that are useful such as last=. At some point we need to remove the unnamed parameter as it prevents checking for errors in the other parameters, it is better to explain to a person unfamiliar with templates what is needed than to leave an article with {1|} which is meaningless to readers and editors not familiar with template syntax.

The point about not setting variables make the article prof against errors such as the one you came across in {{Cite DNB}} where the parameter author was affected by the parameter last being set (see Template talk:Cite DNB#Unnamed parameter). It does not matter if the parameters currently do not have any side effects using the format HIDE_PARAMETER is future proofing the template to changes to the template it calls. --PBS (talk) 18:57, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Missing title category

In its current form, this template puts articles in Category:Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1922 Encyclopaedia Britannica with no article parameter, even if there is a title= or wstitle= parameter. See for example Arthur Richmond Atkinson and Edwin Austin Abbey respectively. I can see differences between this and {{Cite EB1911}}, but I'm not inducted into the mysteries of template programming (I created {{EB1922}} based on {{EB1911}} but it just calls this template so of course shows the same issue). Can someone take a look? Pinging User:PBS and User:Bob Burkhardt. David Brooks (talk) 16:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

@DavidBrooks: I have only just seen your message. I think I can see what the problem is, but you will have to give me 24 hours to fix it as I will need to do some testing. -- PBS (talk) 00:18, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. No urgency at all, and the few articles affected can wait for the background fixup. David Brooks (talk) 00:27, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I think I fixed them. -- PBS (talk) 13:12, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Looks good, thanks. The category is empty, I did null edits on the above two cases to remove the category links. As it happens, the reference in Arthur Richmond Atkinson is wrongincomplete; will fix that while I'm there. David Brooks (talk) 17:20, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I have added {{emptycat}} to the category text to discourage anyone deleting it. I ran an AWB session this afternoon to add a "wstitle=" parameter to all the template that had an unnamed parameter (about 300 entries) so that category is also empty now. -- PBS (talk) 18:48, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

HIDE_PARAMETER

@WOSlinker Please explain you thinking behind these edits -- PBS (talk) 17:25, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

If the same parameter is passed to a template more than once then the page gets added to Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls, so I've made them all unique to stop pages being added to that category. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:48, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

@WOSlinker and why do you think that duplicate names are undesirable? (Ie what is the point of Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls and where was its discussed and a consensus reached that this should be done? -- PBS (talk) 15:11, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I made this edit for the same reason, although the technique differs. Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 131#Duplicate parameters. Yesterday there were 47,000 pages in Category:Pages using duplicate arguments in template calls; now there are over 50,000. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:19, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

both methods look good to me. Frietjes (talk) 15:25, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The cat is actually very useful for detecting errors in citations, as here - six instances of |first1=. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:27, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64 (edit clash) apart from asking you the same questions as WOSlinker, A quick look at this edit would seem to me to be altering what is passed into the calling template and AFAICT you are now passing in 23 empty parameters into the template {{cite EB1911}} what would happen if that was a redirect to {{cite encyclopedia}}? The whole point of the construct you have altered is only to set and pass in values of parameters that are set. This is because of problems in templates that use constructs like this {{{last|{{{author|.....}}}}}} which means that author is never read if last is set to an empty value. -- PBS (talk) 15:31, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Constructs like that are not a problem, because |author= is not passed through if it's blank. This is the old code:

|{{#if:{{{author |}}} |author |HIDE_PARAMETER}}={{{author|}}}

Now let's assume that it was called with |author= either blank or omitted. The old code then effectively became:

|{{#if: |author |HIDE_PARAMETER}}=

and since the #if: is followed by a null term, it further reduced to:

|HIDE_PARAMETER=

Now consider my version:

|author{{#if:{{{author |}}} | |HIDE_PARAMETER}}={{{author|}}}

and again assume that it is called with |author= either blank or omitted. The new code then effectively becomes:

|author{{#if: | |HIDE_PARAMETER}}=

and since the #if: is again followed by a null term, it again reduces to:

|authorHIDE_PARAMETER=

and AFAIK {{cite EB1911}} doesn't recognise a |authorHIDE_PARAMETER= param, so it's ignored and does no harm. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:53, 26 October 2014 (UTC)