Wikipedia talk:Citing sources with Zotero

Problem with generated cite for BBC

This is a very helpful project page - thanks! But there is an issue with the currently generated BBC cite:

• For the BBC article in the example, it Incorporates the location information from the dateline into the author name field, like this:

Cite web| last1 = News| first1 = Martin Patience BBC| last2 = Zisiqiao| last3 = China| title = Visiting China's 'snake village' of Zisiqiao| work = BBC News| accessdate = 2015-08-02| url = http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-21332266

i.e. News, Martin Patience BBC; Zisiqiao; China. "Visiting China's 'snake village' of Zisiqiao". BBC News. Retrieved 2015-08-02. {{cite web}}: |last1= has generic name (help)

The dateline in this case was

By Martin Patience
BBC News, Zisiqiao, China

• For the wired article it looks good, despite the warning, so perhaps someone fixed that but didn't update this page:

Cite web| last = Drake| first = Nadia| title = Blind, Fuzzy Moles Smell in Stereo| work = WIRED| accessdate = 2015-08-02| date = 2013-02-05| url = http://www.wired.com/2013/02/moles-smell-in-stereo/

i.e. Drake, Nadia (2013-02-05). "Blind, Fuzzy Moles Smell in Stereo". WIRED. Retrieved 2015-08-02.

• For the patent: good:

Cite| last = Giraud| first = Jean-Pierre| title = Moisture-tight edible film dispenser and method thereof| accessdate = 2015-08-02| date = 2009-03-25| url = http://www.google.com/patents/EP1692064B1

Giraud, Jean-Pierre (2009-03-25), Moisture-tight edible film dispenser and method thereof, retrieved 2015-08-02

• For the print: good:

Cite web| last = Hyde| first = Helen| title = Hon[orable Mr] cat| format = still image| accessdate = 2015-08-02| date = 1903| url = http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/finepr/item/2003675444/

Hyde, Helen (1903). "Hon[orable Mr] cat" (still image). Retrieved 2015-08-02.

★NealMcB★ (talk) 14:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Cite journal example needs updating

The {{cite journal}} example needs updating to remove the 'coauthors' field. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 22:38, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

 Done. Jason Quinn did this on 25 September 2016. Many thanks. RobbieIanMorrison (talk) 14:24, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Zotero now has a Wikidata translator

Citation management tool Zotero now has two Wikidata translators. Not only does it read metadata from Wikidata items about works, so you can add them to your Zotero library, but it can export metadata in a format understood by QuickStatements, enabling users to more easily create Wikidata items about the works already in their Zotero libraries. Since Zotero can already read metadata about works from other websites, or data files such as BibTeX and COinS, it can now be used as an intermediary to import that data. See d:Wikidata:Zotero. The translator was developed at the recent WikiCite event in Vienna. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:04, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Zotero 5 is out

In fact, it's currently on 5.0.1; see https://www.zotero.org/blog/zotero-5-0/ -- Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:15, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

possible new info for "Getting started" section

Hello Pigsonthewing and all- Day one with Zotero for me, and I use Vivaldi as my browser, having finally abandoned Firefox. Before installing anything, I searched Vivaldi's forums, where people had reported some success using the Chrome extension. So I simply added Zotero Connector to Chrome via the Chrome Store. Once I restarted Vivaldi, the "Save to Zotero" button appeared in my browser toolbar. I have not used it yet, so this may be premature, but does my experience warrant adding this simple procedure to the "Getting started" section of this project page? PS- Does anyone know if there's a tool to ping a selection of users from the history of a page? I victimized Andy as the most recent user but couldn't take the time right now to ping everyone. Thanks in advance. Eric ^talk 18:47, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

For the latter point, see Template:Reply to#Multiple recipients. I'd suggest that "How to install Zotero on Vivaldi" is an issue for the Zotero website; they have forums there where you can make a suggestion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:56, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Andy. Do you not think the Chrome extension is worth mentioning? At the moment just the two installation options are mentioned. But of course it could be that I do not yet have full functionality as I have not tried it out yet. Re the reply-to template: I was wondering if someone might have come up with a gadget that would harvest user names from a page history, along the lines of the way some web forums will bring up a drop-down list of users from a given thread as soon as you type "@" in an edit window. Eric ^talk 19:29, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

Use of cite param 'language' with value English

I was informed by Hemiauchenia in this discussion that the Zotero tool adds the |lang= parameter to {{citation}}s, with the value 'English' by default when used from Visual Editor. I checked the |language= section of the documentation at Template:Cite web/doc (transcluded from Template:Citation Style documentation/language) and it isn't entirely clear about this point, but my understanding is that we prefer not to have param language present when the language of the source is the default, namely English. Is adding |lang=en the default behavior we want from the tool? Adding @Trappist the monk, Matthiaspaul, and Jonesey95:. Mathglot (talk) 22:36, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

|language=en isn't strictly required but when en.wiki articles are translated for use at other-language wikipedias, as many are, the inclusion of |language= is one less thing for the translator to bother about. This was especially important to the editors who were (still are?) translating medical articles. There is no reason to remove |language=en and I don't know of any bots that actually do that (caveat lector: just because I don't know of such a bot, does not mean that such a bot does not exist).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:55, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk: Thanks, I stand corrected. I wonder if the documentation at the citation templates needs to be clearer about this point; I had somehow read it to be undesirable. Mathglot (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

I suck at documentation so if you believe that the |language= documentation can be improved, please improve it.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 23:35, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

YouTube timestamp not properly parsed in automatic citation

Timestamps on YouTube videos are not properly parsed when automatically citing. Perhaps there should be a note to users? Top5a (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Template improvement

I'm trying to improve my use of citation tools and I found Zotero and JabRef to be the best tools, with those tools I can work on university papers and on Wikipedia.

I found the templates are located at:

https://github.com/citation-style-language/styles/blob/master/wikipedia-templates.csl

https://github.com/JabRef/jabref/blob/main/buildres/csl/csl-styles/wikipedia-templates.csl

But I find the current template to be lacking many fields, like pmc, pmid, s2cid, arxiv, biorxiv, jstor and others.

I will see if I can submit a pull request to improve it. But I'm letting the links here so others can also easily find it and help improve it. —Arthurfragoso (talk) 02:09, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

frustrating, waste of time: automatic Zotero add-citation fails much of the time (:-(

Automatic reference from URL is helpful when it works, but it fails for me far, FAR too often, and with high-profile sites at that - very, VERY frustrating. Because it's too much trouble, and simply a waste of time to manually enter data for what should be automatic, I usually give up and find another source that works with auto-reference. This puts Zotero-incompatible sites at a disadvantage.

• Copy URL to clipboard (from my previously saved fails file), e.g.:
  • https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-authorizes-novavaxs-updated-covid-shot-2023-10-03/
  • https://www.carscoops.com/2022/12/canoo-accuses-former-execs-of-stealing-trade-secrets-to-form-new-ev-company/
  • https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/04/environmentalists-slam-corporate-influence-un-climate-talks/
  • https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article257601938.html
  • https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/net-zero-emissions-1.5807877
• Start editing article (e.g. sandbox)
• If no text, type or paste some text
• Select some text
• Click [Cite]
• Click [Automatic]
• Paste
• Click [Create]

Result:

• Unhelpful error message: "We couldn't make a citation for you. You can create one manually using the "Manual" tab above."
• (Other potential bad result: lookup hangs; code in seemingly endless loop or flaky server?)
• Expected: article title, first name, last name, date automatically imported
• Less-bad, but obviously MUCH better than error message: [Submit URL to Zotero] button automagically sends problem URL to Zotero fixme database for (hopefully) prompt fix. Could include Wikipedia user ID, means for user to follow-up on reported URLs

Doug Grinbergs (talk) 08:55, 15 March 2024 (UTC)