Talk:Heath Ledger/Archive 5

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Contents 1 Cause of Death 2 Cit[ation] format

Cause of Death

http://www.myfoxny.com/myfox/pages/Entertainment/Detail?contentId=5695576&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=TSTY&pageId=7.1.1 EsocksLAMB (talk) 15:56, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Some of the changes that new eds. made to this sec. were not properly documented; statements all need source citations in prevailing format of article. I tried to correct this problem. See above discussion. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 17:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Generally looks good. Only minor issue I can see is I don't think we need the [of prescription drugs] tag in the LA Times citation. The text of the article leaves no doubt that prescription medications were the issue. Townlake (talk) 17:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree w/ that; I put it in before I made the subsequent revisions (working v. quickly, as must log out v. soon to leave for an app't.). --NYScholar (talk) 17:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I got an edit conflict when I tried to update. I can just grab it later if you don't get to it, no emergency. Townlake (talk) 17:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I did try to fix it; but there are a lot of editing conflicts I'm also running into due to reversions by some new eds. --NYScholar (talk) 18:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Cit[ation] format

I spent a good deal of time a few weeks ago seeking out citations for unsourced text and getting all of the references that had been haphazardly entered here into a consistent format, using the "cite" templates that predominated. When I finished, the whole article was consistently using the templates, and there was an exchange here on talk about citation format. I see that since then another 25+ citations were added without the cite template formats - this is inconsistent and something needs to be fixed. (There are at least 50 - twice as many - already in the cite format.) If there is a citation format already in place, proposing a change in format is fine here on Talk, but just adding new cites in a different format than has been established leaves something of a mess to be cleaned up. I'm willing to work on changing the smaller number of new ones to the cite template, and I hope others will help out in that task, but there needs to be some agreement about this going forward. I prefer the templates for their consistency in the way the references display, and the increased likelihood that all of the relevant fields, such as access date, are included. And now from a practical point of view, it doesn't seem to me to make a lot of sense for someone to have to go through the article and change over 50 citations to a different format, for no clear advantage that I can see. To be upfront about it, I'm not really willing to put that kind of work into undoing all of the work I did previously, but maybe someone else is, if we reach consensus on making that wholesale change. See talk archive for an exchange about citation style between Miranda and me that no one raised any objection to, and see WP:CITE for the need for consistency. Thanks. Tvoz |talk 19:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate all the work that you did do earlier (see archived talk re: waiting until some time passes to make the citations format fully consistent); but a lot of subsequent editors came into this article, leaving statements with no sources at all, or confusing how to do templates. The templates themselves are not very useful for notes citations (which abound in this article now) becuase they introduce non-standard punctuation errors that Wikipedia itself acknowledges. The templates are merely one possible option but not consistently recommended in Wikipedia, which offers several possible options. I myself do not use the templates because of the punctuation inconsistencies for footnotes/endnotes ("in-line citations") vs. the way an alphabetized list of references (standard bibliography) is formatted (last name first). Also, this is an article about a figure in the world of the arts (drama, movies, entertainment, film), and a humanities format is preferred for such a subject. See e.g., MLA Style Manual for such a format, which is referred to as a possibility in the WP:CITE, and other places re: to reference style formats suggested for notes. Discipline of the subject also pertains here. Wikipedia:Reliable sources has other useful links. I haven't the time to convert all the notes to templates (which I hate using). Where there were correctly formatted templates for corrent sources provided earlier by others, I tried to keep them; but if there were already errors in them, I tried to correct them or put my own added notes in standard format (except for the way "Retrieved on" is used in this article; I prefer comma "accessed" and then date, which is simpler and more-closely humanities footnote/endnot punctuation format. --NYScholar (talk) 20:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I have also spent a great deal of my own time providing notes citations subsequent to the earlier editors' work on this article, making corrections, etc. --NYScholar (talk) 20:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:CIT has most of the templates. I would heartily recommend doing a citation overhaul as time allows as this bio will continue to have activity for the next few years at least so good writing and reffing will keep much of teh non-vandalism nonsense at bay. Benjiboi 20:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

NYS, basically, Wikipedia has a Manual of Style to which cites are formatted. Some teachers prefer MLA, while others prefer a different style (persay APA, Turabian, etc.) In this case, I think we should leave the style as it is (subsequent editors may or may not take a vote). Thanks for your concern. miranda 20:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately (in my own view), Wikipedia's own Manual of Style links lead to all kinds of inconsistent policies, guidelines, commentaries, etc.: e.g., see the links in Wikipedia:Footnotes to related policies and guidelines and related "recommendations" (not policies or guidelines). Editors have to choose from a whole host of (inconsistent and inconsistently punctuating) options, which lead to inconsistencies when many different editors add sources to an article over extended periods of time. At the moment, there is no single prevailing citation format used in this article, due to a variety of hands involved in formatting the citations. As suggested some time ago (archived) an overhaul of the citations might wait until the article revising settles down (down the road). Right now, a lot of new and/or inexperienced users seem to be entering the article. See the semi-protection template and possible need for full protection if any (further) vandalism or possibly too much ill-conceived editing occurs. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 21:35, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See espec. Wikipedia:Footnotes#Converting citation styles for more recent (and "simpler") <ref>/</ref> format suggestions. --NYScholar (talk) 21:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See also the distinction between footnotes and bibliographical references (reference list) in earlier part Wikipedia:Footnotes#Citation templates. Templates are better used for a references list as opposed to footnotes; some of these distinctions also pertain to individual editorial preferences as well as to disciplines of subjects of articles, etc. No consensus about the citations format yet in this article? (Note that "use of templates" is "not required" in Wikipedia.) --NYScholar (talk) 21:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Finally, in my own experience and from my own viewpoint, use of Wikipedia's citation templates is an absurd waste of time and space, when it is far easier and far more in keeping with standard punctuation of notes/endnotes and bibliographical reference lists style formats to enter the proper information between the "ref" codes. --NYScholar (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I personally prefer the cite template. Much easier to use, a quick cut and paste and entry of information. Also outputs dates in ISO format so no conflict with international/US date styles in article body. If the one template is used on the article, it will still be consistent. •Florrie•leave a note• 22:09, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) (ec) NYScholar, that is your opinion and your preference but obviously the wikipedia community has differing views on the subject. What works well for you might be disruptive to someone who needs consistent formatting as they are visually impaired so use an interpretive device. Also your system can be seen, by me at least, as quite hard to sort through as it's not standardized to either of the standard formats i regularly encounter on wikipedia. Benjiboi 22:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I am referencing more than my "own opinion" (by the way): Wikipedia:Citing sources#Footnotes.

(ec) And this article already had a mixture of formats when I first encountered it a few days ago, with the matter, by consensus, deferred to later; see also Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation templates--an unresolved situation at the current time. --NYScholar (talk) 22:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] Well, I'm certainly not inexperienced nor did I suggest that templates are required. I specifically said that the goal is consistency of style within an article, not across the encyclopedia, and I'm quite aware that different groups of editors use different styles to achieve the same consistent results. My experience has been that a much more serious problem with free-style referencing than commas is that there's no consistency in order of words or inclusion of required data. Not saying yours are entered inconsistently as I haven't looked, but a big advantage of the templates is that it doesn't matter what order you add the fields - they are adjusted accordingly and are therefore consistent within the article - and the template form serves as a reminder to include them all. I don't in fact use the physical templates - I know the fields and include them all manually, but I don't worry about whether I've punctuated or ordered them properly because that's automated, which actually saves, not wastes, a lot of time. And use of the cite format makes it easier to check other peoples' citations. That's my preference, and all I am raising here is that we ought to come to an agreement about what style will be used - as of a few weeks ago it was consistent, and now it is not at all, and you mentioned upstream that you preferred a different style and were using it. I'm not sure who you think should now or later go in to fix the rest and bring them in line with your preferred style, but seeing as there are over 50 in the cite format and 28 in various freestyle formats (at last count earlier today), logic would suggest that it's easier to convert the few than the many. Which is why I raised this. of course I don't think this is nearly as important as getting the facts straight, using good writing, and keeping the vandalism away, but before it gets completely out of hand I think this should be considered. Not everyone has internalized the rules of referencing, as anyone who reads student papers knows, and so it seems to me that any help that can be offered in the form of templates for this is positive. An aside - semi-protection from new and IP editors seems appropriate for now, but I very much doubt we'll add full protection to this article as it's very rarely done, and correctly so. Tvoz |talk 22:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Tvoz: I was not referring to you specifically but rather in general. Re: citation templates and who will fix them: if citation templates are to be used in this article, I will not be the one to make those conversions. As far as the "ref" format that I have used throughout: the items are all in proper order, properly punctuated. The only diff. from what I generally format is that I deferred to "Retrieved on" with a period before it, when, in note format, a comma and "accessed" and date is fine (and consistently used in other articles that I work on). I have a true dislike of the citation templates for the reasons that I've given already here and elsewhere and do not use them if at all possible. If they actually are used consistently in an article that I encounter, I defer to them. But I generally avoid working on such articles' documentation (so much do I dislike them). --NYScholar (talk) 23:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW: the "ref" format in notes initiated by other editors have errors: last name first, dates following authors' names, in at least one instance of a citation template, for some reason there is a date in parentheses in another order (don't know why); because there are more than one citaiton template to choose from (as the guidelines I've already cited point out), people accidentally may mix them up and that results in inconsistencies. From the perspective of many Wikipedia editors trained in advanced humanistic scholarship (like me), the citation templates are not only arcane but lack appreciation of standard scholarly protocols. (See my current talk page for related articles/discussion.) No time to deal with this anymore, I'm afraid. Logging out (I say again, and am doing.) --NYScholar (talk) 23:29, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Another way to go is to just fix an error if you see one, rather than write about it here. Or at least give a hint so someone else can do it. But never mind. The first part of your first sentence confirms what I was saying - free-styling leads to errors. You're right that people might use the wrong cite template, but that can be easily fixed. As for the templates themselves - I have no doubt that they don't all respect all scholarly conventions, but from my experience scholars in the real world generally agree that consistency within a document is more important than strict adherence to a protocol, especially if the protocol presents problems for a given situation. So it seems several folks have said here they prefer the cite templates, one prefers free-styling - I'm interested to hear what others think about this not-very-important housekeeping matter and we can move on. Tvoz |talk 00:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, the "refs" format that I have used for sources that I have added to this article is consistent. Others may not be. The citations templates are a mixed lot, with variations among them. Some used "work", some used "publisher" [interchangeably instead of "publication" or "journal" (which pertains to periodical titles such as those of newspapers)], resulting in problematic punctuation in linked titles of newspapers, e.g.,; I tried to regularize some of them, but I have not got time to do that with all of them. Given the large number of source citations that I formatted for this article, which are all correctly ordered and punctuated (up until "Retrieved" etc.), I prefer continuing with them; I will not convert them all to citation templates that I do not prefer to use (espec. since others could easily introduce further errors in them via deletions, reversions, etc., which occur often in this article). The coding is essential for repeated citations: "ref name=..." does not require use of quotation marks before the short name inserted and does not require any space before the "/". I've already provided [Wikipedia link to Wikipedia's own] clearcut explanation of how to construct a "ref" note format in Wikipedia: it is very simple to do and the note takes up far less space than a template does (as mentioned in material at Wikipedia:Footnotes. --NYScholar (talk) 01:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC) [If someone else is going to change all the notes in this article to one consistent template citation format, down the road, after all that work is done, if that one consistent template citation format is this article's "prevailing format," then the rest of us would have to follow it. But with the "ref" format I've used, I'd just point out, "if it ain't broke" it doesn't need to be "fixed." That format is correct and exists throughout many Wikipedia articles without any contention at all. --NYScholar (talk) 01:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC) [added bracketed info about one problem throughout current citation templates in this article; there are other inconsistencies; choice of wrong templates given type of publication, for example. --NYScholar (talk) 01:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)]

Another inconsistency that citation templates introduce is that Wikipedia:Manual of Style asks for titles of articles (news, others) to be punctuated within quotation marks, with the symbol for the ext. link to follow the closing quotation mark; whereas in some of these citation templates, the opposite occurs, which is a problem and a conflict w/ other Wikipedia requirements (punctuation of titles). --NYScholar (talk) 01:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

This is getting tedious. First of all, the cite format is part of the ref format, and also uses the ref name format. It doesn't matter if the ref name is in quotes or not - makes no difference in the display which is what we're most concerned about, not the syntax of the code. Nor does the space before the slash matter. That's not what I mean by consistency. The edit before your first edit here had 56 refs using cite format and 9 not using it - so I would call that "prevailing format". You (not single-handedly) upped the number of non-cite format entries, so now the article is more inconsistent and needs to be fixed at some point one way or the other - not the end of the world, but all I've been trying to do is get some agreement on how to go forward and I'm sure there will be editors willing to backtrack and correct the format decided to be errant. If we use the cite format templates, and some citations end up incorrectly punctuated, we can fix them - but we'll all be working from agreement on a consistent form of footnotes. You know, I edit a lot of articles and have never had this kind of contention over a simple matter like reference format - although there have certainly been other disputes. This discussion is getting less productive, in my opinion, so I think we can end the back and forth and see if anyone else has a point of view on this or else just move on. Tvoz |talk 03:53, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the first 2 notes to inconsistent templates have introduced new typographical errors and insconsistencies in the notes format; to the editor who did that: please restore the correct order and date link format (see edit history). Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 03:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

This is not a helpful note - could you please provide diffs if you see a problem but aren't willing to fix it, so someone else doesn't have to research it? Tvoz |talk 03:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Given the errors introduced, I restored the at-least corr. format of previous reference formats that editor P. had changed to wrong templates. The fields are incorrect and placement and P are both also incorrect. Where are quotation marks for titles, e.g.; the edit introduced double set of brackets, etc. Please proofread. And please consult all the different types of citation templates and pick the appropriate ones if you or others are converting all the citations to consistent citation style formats for notes (not ref. list that is alphabetized). Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 03:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I've already explained specific diffs.; please read the earlier comments. Look at editing differences. Also, there are currently far more notes beginning first name, last name, then title (within q. marks), then title of work/publication (in italics), then date (normal order) and then a period and "Retrieved on", than there are other orders (last name, first name, followed by date). There is nothing incorrect about the notes 1 and 2 and others that I introduced into this article with angle bracketed "ref" "/ref" format. In contrast, those templates are inconsistent, often don't match the type of publication being cited, and those templates have been introducing multiple typographical errors. --NYScholar (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

to Pairadox: Please read the talk page discussions; you are engaging in changes that are introducing multiple typographical errors in the note citations. ---NYScholar (talk) 04:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I have read the talk page discussions. Condensing it all, you basically don't like the citation templates and everybody else says to use them. Pairadox (talk) 04:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Pairadox - FYI: "Cite news" will automatically give the title of the article in quotation marks without typing the quote marks in. I think we want to use "news" for any newspaper or magazine article, and save "web" for websites. Also, for all cite templates I believe you can omit any field that has no data in it (like co-author) to make it less cumbersome. As for inconsistencies between the cite formats, my feeling is that the first thing to do is get them all into cite format and then fine tune it if an incorrect template was used - often all that's needed is a change in the header from "cite web" to "cite news" or the like and the item will display properly. Tvoz |talk 05:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. I'm generally reluctant to use citenews unless it is from a print edition, but I can see that using it here might remove one of the objections NYS has to it. I'll try to remember to remove all of the unused fields. Pairadox (talk) 05:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

P's changes are losing all the quotation marks around titles (proper punctuation of article titles); all the italics around titles of newspapers ("publications", not "publishers"); and presenting dates of publication within parentheses in odd places at times; I've asked for greater care if one is going to convert these source citations in the notes to "citation templates"; there are multiple citation templates to choose from that match different types of sources, and one must choose the ones properly so that the punctuation of titles of articles and titles of works in which they are published (publications) is accurate. Right now, the way P. is making these changes is erroneous. --NYScholar (talk) 09:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I am actually a professional bibliographer and academic professor who teaches the subject of research writing; I see no value when not using a consistent APA or ACS or MLA or Harvard referencing format in using templates that use last name, first name if one is not creating an alphabetized list of references (a "bibliography"). The purpose of last name first is for alphabetizing. If one chooses an "author" field in a citation template and just inserts the normal order of the author's name or authors' names after the = sign, then it will post properly, first name, then middle initial, then last name. One does not need to use the "first" and "last" name fields; even the citation templates have this option (see this article where such features in citation templates result in normal order). --NYScholar (talk) 10:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Titles of films are italicized, but they are not in this article's use of templates. --NYScholar (talk) 10:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you take your concerns to the template talk pages. This is taking up way too much space here when it's not really about the article at all. Oh, and would you take the time to spell out some of the abbreviations you use, since not all editors have your qualifications? I doubt that things like "tc" are clear to everyone. Testicular Cancer? Total Cholesterol? Trinity Cross? Pairadox (talk) 10:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you please cool it? [I find that suggestion ridiculous.] Thanks. "tc"=typographical correction(s)"; such an edit is marked "minor" in my editing summaries (when alone, or w/ other such minor changes), and it's explained on my talk page in the section called "N.B." (Nota Bene meaning "Note Well." Please try to focus on correcting the typographical errors that you are introducing into the notes. Thanks. --NYScholar (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

NYS, I reiterate what Pairadox has said. This is not the place for discussions about your views on what you think are deficiencies of the cite templates. Take it to Template talk:Cite or Template talk:Ref or Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. This page is for discussing the improvement of this articles content, of which I've removed a whole pile of clutter and unencyclopaedic opinion. —Moondyne 15:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

My comments are about improving this article by correcting errors currently still in the citation template formats (which are still inconsistent); some use "author =", which posts properly (first name, initial [if any], then last name); some use "first name =" and then "last name =" which posts in reverse order. "Staff writer" uses "author =" and so on. I tried to regularize (make consistent) but ran into a problem w/ a missing code; so I'm leaving it to others to regularize and make consistent the use of citation templates throughout (since that format is what has been chosen [thus far due to deletions of my citations formatting]. The editors who introduced the errors into the templates need to correct their errors, which are resulting in inconsistencies. Dates of publication must match actual dates of publication; dates of access must match actual dates of access; if you reverse the numbers, they will post incorrectly and confuse us all. --NYScholar (talk) 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Templates add needless code and clutter to the article, so I would just suggest to add the citations manually as has been done manually in Toronto Raptors and Tourette syndrome. Aaron Bowen (talk) 02:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I had already manually used the "ref" format w/o citation templates for new source that I added and corrections of those in templates, but all my changes have been reverted. Today I just corrected the inconsistencies within the templates and have left them as is otherwise. But the mixture of first name, last name order (author = ) and last name, first name order had created further inconsistencies, which I have just eliminated by making them all conform to first name, last name by consistently using "author =." (I agree w/ Aaron Bowen's general comment otherwise but have deferred to the citation templates, under protest [see earlier].) --NYScholar (talk) 05:28, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Last night I went through for several hours and converted the citation templates in several ways, namely:

• Turned them all into vertical format, which helps to separate them from the source of the article and makes it easier to edit them;
• Converted a lot of {{cite web}} templates into {{cite news}}. Cite news is (apparently) specifically for any news source, whether it is online or not. The blogs on newspaper web sites are a bit of a grey area, as are magazines like Us Weekly and People Magazine.
• Moved the names of newspapers to the "publisher" field, from "work". The documentation of the cite news template has traditionally been ambiguous on which of these two fields should be used for the name of a newspaper. The documentation now suggests using "work" for it, but by placing the newspaper name under "Publisher", it allows us to use "work" for "the name of a column or subpart of an issue", which I used for column/section names as well as the name of the website if the article was never published as part of the print edition of the newspaper.

The citation templates are not perfect, and are ambiguous of what to do with, for example, multiple authors (surname first, or what?). However, I think it's better to use the citation templates than not, because one day in the future the developers may decide to code in some functionality that takes the fields from the citation templates and allows people to choose a preferred referencing format in their preferences, and automatically reorganise the information in the template according to those preferences (kind of like how [[June 12]], [[2004]] automatically reorganises itself to "[[June 12|12 June]] [[2004]]" when I'm viewing it). - Mark 05:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your work. I have, however, found further inconsistencies and also one template that was embedded and not in vertical manner (which I fixed). The "column" or "section" is not supposed to come before the title of the publication (newspaper); it follows the date, with the page no. following that (in standard bibliog. format). Using "work" field for section (column) is incorrect. The "Late Edition" for one NYT ref. citation was incorrectly placed as well: that belongs at the end of a ref. citation in note (I placed it after a page ref.) It is generally no longer nec. to use "p." or "pp." in giving page refs.; also, since one is citing the online version of the newspaper, giving the page ref. is misleading. (I know that I am using the online version of the NYT for that citation, even though I have the paper copy of the NYT in most cases; don't recall if I have the NYT for Jan. 22 somewhere.) When the citation templates are imperfect (which they are), one has to make adjustments manually. It is not possible to render punctuation correctly with these templates in the case of author and coauthors. The templates create a semicolon where there is in most citation style formats a comma and they place a period after an author's name or authors' names, when there would normally be a comma. I have not found a way to fix that problem and that is one reason that I prefer to make the citations manually rather than with the templates. But I have worked with the templates currently in the article anyway (despite my own preferences). --NYScholar (talk) 06:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

All those Box Office Mojo references in the filmography table are horizontal, rather than vertical, format. I left them as they were because the cite template uses the "|" character in the same place that the table markup does, and I thought it might confuse people. That was another point I had meant to write in my post above.

I wasn't sure what to do about the page number for the newspapers that I found. In some cases where they were published in the print editions, they were given slightly different titles. One the one hand, I like having URLs to online articles where possible, but I feel it's important to give the information about the print edition article in case the URL goes dead and someone wants to consult the article.

As for the punctuation surrounding authors and co-authors in the citation templates, that sounds like the sort of thing that can be readily fixed by leaving a complaint/note on the template's talk page. I would edit the template, but it uses pretty complicated boolean stuff that I don't care to learn. - Mark 08:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)