User talk:Superb Owl

Cleanup Barnstar

		The Cleanup Barnstar
		Thanks for your hard work on stochastic terrorism.Ich (talk) 13:21, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Redundant citations

~~Please explain why you are unwilling to allow the same citation to be combined so the lengthy citation does not have to be written out in two different places?~~

~~In addition, why did you remove the author's name from the citation?~~ Jc3s5h (talk) 19:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I did not delete an author's name and I do not know what you are talking about with regard to blocking a combined citation. Superb Owl (talk) 19:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see that I didn't put a pipe between first1=David last1=Lieb. I will fix it. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you also strikethrough your first comment? Superb Owl (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You introduced redundancy in this edit

Old wikitext

<ref name="Lieb2024"/>

New wikitext

<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-09-02 |title=Noncitizen voting is extremely rare, yet Republicans are making it a major election concern |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/noncitizen-voting-is-extremely-rare-yet-republicans-are-making-it-a-major-election-concern |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=PBS News |language=en-us}}</ref>

Jc3s5h (talk) 22:24, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea how I would have broken something like you are describing. It was a very targeted edit. Is something wrong with the visual editor? Superb Owl (talk) 22:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The visual editor is crap. Anyone who uses it is responsible for the damage. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be news to me.
I suggest you take it up with someone at the foundation if that is what you think is the problem since you seem to have diagnosed it and I don't fully understand it. Superb Owl (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are responsible for the tool you choose to use. Please look through your edits and either don't submit the edit, or immediately undo it, if the tool is doing something you didn't expect. The visual editor is especially weak in handling citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:06, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I have not noticed any issues and am wondering what exactly I should be looking for? Should I scan the references for error messages after every time I publish a citation? Superb Owl (talk) 01:08, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When using visual editor, you make your changes and click Publish changes.... A window pops up where you describe what you changed. Fill that in, but DON'T push Publish changes yet. Instead click, in the lower right, Review your changes.

In the upper right of the review box, there will be two words next to each other, Visual and Wikitext. Make sure Wikitext is highlighted in blue. Then scroll through, looking for deletions with an orange background and additions with a blue background. Just make sure nothing is changing that you didn't mean to change. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spelling this out. This is really frustrating if it turns out that the visual editor is this buggy. Superb Owl (talk) 01:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, the error messages that show up in red are produced within Module:Citation/CS1. Generally the module only looks within one citation at a time, so needless duplication of citations will not be detected. Also, the url mentioned in the citation will not be examined to see if the writer of the citation extracted the information correctly. So, for example, you delete the author from a citation, the module won't notice. The page Help:Citation Style 1 mentions some of the error messages emitted by the module. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:31, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is one the issues you have is that I am not scanning the references for existing versions of a citation before adding an article? This again seems like an issue that should be solved on the backend, not on the frontend. I also haven't deleted any authors from any citations intentionally Superb Owl (talk) 01:34, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Citation management isn't easy at university, and it isn't easy at Wikipedia. Finding duplicate sources is one of the problem areas Within a minute I found a person at Research Gate bitching about how hard it is to do in Microsoft Word and another guy suggesting creating an Excel spread sheet to help out the inadequate Word.

I am well aware the active elections articles are a mess in terms of citations, and I looked for a tool to detect duplicates. I didn't find such a tool. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:41, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, when adding a citation, an easy way to see if it's a duplicate is to edit the ENTIRE source of the article, and do a browser search using the url you intend to add, to see if it's already there. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the tip - I will try to be more mindful - but know that sometimes I intentionally duplicate in order to add quotes if it seems like context is needed in the citation to support a claim that will likely be disputed Superb Owl (talk) 01:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It may be necessary to duplicate a citation if there is a different quote. The sources in the active election articles don't mention specific page numbers, but in other articles where page numbers are prevalent, there are ways to only give a full citation for the source once, and differentiate which citations of that source refer to which page number. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I try to do that when not adding quotes. Very much a minimalist when it comes to articles and citations. When there are 363 citations it can be a bit overwhelming to find and eliminate duplicates. Superb Owl (talk) 03:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

After working in the source editor it is much easier to manage duplicate citations by searching for the URL but I also now see how it might be so much more frustrating with quotes in citations and duplicates if working in source editor. Superb Owl (talk) 06:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not a computer scientist but it seems solveable if not now, then soon. Superb Owl (talk) 01:52, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I copied the article to one of my sandboxes. I then added the Amy Sherman citation that you added, doing it automatically with the url and the visual editor. It seemed to work. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]