https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26786

[email protected] changed:

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--- Comment #16 from [email protected] 2011-05-04 20:56:30 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #13)
> As a minor comment (I hav not looked at your code, just your comment) - having
> constructs like {{#citation:|web|...}} where the first parameter is an empty
> string doesn't seem very pretty. I'd much prefer {{#citation:web|...}} for
> default type and {{#citation:web|...|type=MLA}} for non-default types. (This 
> of
> course is a bikeshed issue and not important in the grand scheme of things)

It would be easy to fix the code so that the first parameter could be *either*
a style type *or* a work type like "book," "web," etc. If the latter, then the
default style is used.

You should know that in the the Citation/core template, the work type (i.e.,
"book", "journal", "web", etc.) is completely irrelevant. The Citation/core
template does not even accept these terms as parameters. Rather, it determines
what type of work is being cited by looking at what options are set. For
example, if the "journal" option is set, the template knows it is citing a
journal. If "contribution" is set, it knows that it is citing a chapter in a
book, unless both "contribution" and "journal" are set, in which case it knows
that it is citing a subsection with a unique author in a larger journal
article. If "title" and "url" are set, but "publisher" is not, it knows that
what is being cited is a website, etc. Thus, if the Citation class works
anything like the Citation/core template, whether or not you include a "book"
or "journal" parameter will not even make a difference in how the citation is
rendered.

In any event, it ought to be possible for a particular wiki to disallow all
citation styles other than some default style. But I think the best way for
that to work is within an infrastructure that allows for the creation of many
alternate standard reference types, and extensibility for adding even more
specialized, or foreign, reference types. A wiki administrator ought to be able
to have several standard style formats to choose from, and there ought to be an
infrastructure to add additional specialty styles if desired, or if the
specialized subject matter of the wiki demands.

Having many style formats to choose from also makes it easier to maintain
existing code. Once a standard styling format is coded according to academic
conventions, then it is essentially done, and you don't have to keep going back
to add features. You can't argue with the Chicago Manual of Style, but you can
argue with the present ad-hoc style of Citation/core which is roughly APA, but
can't be standard APA because it has to be everything to everybody. (Not that
I'm knocking Citation/core, because I was the one that originally wrote it.)

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