Why is someone repeating ref tags to my source notes? Re "864 almost empty of ref tags"

Question

Because I am accustomed to writing academic papers with citations, in most of the profiles I post, I cite every major piece of information using the <ref> tag. They are complete citations wherever possible, e.g., author, title, publication, years, pages, etc. [The only exceptions are profiles that I haven't yet had time to source at all.] Lately I've been receiving a notice in the newsletter that someone has edited a profile, and when I look at it, I see additional reference notes, e.g., My reference number 2 is now "2.0, 2.1, 2.2," etc., and the number [2] is now scattered throughout the biography. The amazing thing is that I know my citations well and these additions are not accurate. I don't have the time to go into them all and correct them. What's going on? And why am I not notified that something needs to be "fixed" before someone else edits my work? And example is #2 at the URL below:

Answer 1

Previously, your footnotes looked like (simplifying)

2. George Maclean Rose, Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography, p. 92

4. Rose, 92

7. Rose, 92

10. Rose, 92

The cause of the "864" is that the Great Suggester thinks "Rose, 92" isn't long enough to be a proper footnote.  This Suggestion catches a variety of cases where <ref> tags are misused.  You wouldn't believe all the ways they're misused.

In this case, since the short footnotes are perfectly OK, the proper fix is to leave them alone and tell the Suggester to shut up.

However, in this case, the Data Doctor has noticed independently (without the aid of a Suggestion) that the footnotes are essentially identical, and so has combined them into one footnote "called" from 4 places, like

2. ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} George Maclean Rose, Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography, p. 92

Opinions might differ on whether or not this is better.  The rows of numbers are ugly.  They came from Wikipedia, 10+ years ago, but Wikipedia did away with them in a later version.

Opinions might differ on whether or not it matters what you think, since some people would say it's mandatory.  The rules are vague about that, as usual.

Comments

I hope that this method of  combining footnotes  never becomes mandatory. To me it looks clumpy, odd and is awkward to follow. I hadn't realised that wikipedia had previously used this system. It also means more formatting to get wrong .

On the one hand the style guide advocates Chicago style but then for multiple uses of the same source  suggests this method.

It is quite valid in Chicago to use a shortened form for 2nd and subsequent uses of a reference. The most recent edition still includes the use of ibid https://research.wou.edu/c.php?g=551307&p=3785493

I use shortened forms frequently  but am now aware not to make them too short. I would agree that the use of ibid  can become confusing.For this reason,  the  2018 version of MHRA (which is more or less  a British equivalent style to Chicago) limits/discourages its use.

 http://www.mhra.org.uk/style/11.3

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Please see my long reply above.

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In genealogical writing (USA), the use of ibid/op cit are discouraged until final draft for publication. if someone comes along and modifies the text and the footnotes/citations get moved around, then they make no sense. At least the WT named ref's can be sorted out if moved around.

Answer 2

I THINK, looking at it, the 2 that the 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3 is indicating that THIS [2] is a series of citations FROM the same work of George (whatever the name was which I didn't note) 

Comments

Susan is correct, the 2.0, 2.1... came from repeated citations of the same 'named' source.  It looks like someone edited the bio to 'clean it up.'  You can restore it by finding the offending edits in the Change log, and click the link to 'Restore the data as it was from....'

Edit to add:  This might have resulted from a Challenge or -Thon of some kind.  'Suggestions' basically give permission for anyone to edit your work to clear them.  It pays to stay on top of your weekly Suggestion report.  'False error' is your friend. 

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Yes, you are both correct. But my point is that the original citations were correct, meaning the information posted was from the source I cited. It may have been repeated in another source (I don't have time to check), but there is no need to cite the same point over and over again.

I haven't heard of a Challenge or Thon before, but thank you for the direction to "restore the data." As for the "Suggestion report", I haven't heard of that either. Every week I get the WikiTree Family News, but the only section I ever see, aside from the Community News and Birthday lists, is "Activity in Your Watchlist". I haven't been notified of any questionable things in my profiles. What am I missing and what do I need to do to find/get it?

Thanks.

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Wendy, pull down the My WikiTree menu, upper right.  Suggestions is about 3/4 of the way down.  It updates weekly, usually Monday evening in US timezones.  You might not be able to see it right now, because Thonners have crashed the server.

I think Wikicode has a way to cite different pages from the same source (ibid, p xxx, etc).  You might find that useful, but I don't know how to do it.  I think it uses the mysterious span function.

And by the way, Welcome to G2G!

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Ah, well, the standard of citations from one source is when they are in succession, one after another, then "Ibid" is used. When those citations are in different locales, in the case in hand citations on different points in the Narrative Biography, then one convention is to do them as was done unto your "scattered" citations -- at that time

There was not any quarrel with citing the source, merely in the numbering thereof

And in any case you have restored your own numbering system and if you are still angry, and likely to remain so, then in vengeance, slap a higher level padlock GREEN on the Profile, so that not just anyone can waltz in and mess around but they will have to approach you to be placed on your trusted list at which point you can explain to them no, no, no.

Of COURSE my suggestion for GREEN padlock might well stir up a controversy but ... having the GREEN on it might lower your own b.p.

AND it is possible it will still trigger some sort of Suggestion but you can deal with that later, when and if it happens. And any complaints about it.

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Susan, the subject profile is too old to be anything but Open.  Assuming the user interface is not smart enough to prevent locking it, the first time anyone makes an issue of it the Leaders will Open it, no questions asked.

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Ah, that IS good to know (good for me, that is), Mr Tardy, thank you. 

In which case Ms Taylor may have some more of these moments where someone edits her material, Biog or Source. Which is no comfort for her. 

On the other hand we are none of us Owners but merely Managers of these profiles. 

 Eternal vigilance is the price of Management Status.  

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True that!  At WT we have to choose our battles, because collaboration.  In the subject case, one might argue it's just a question of style.  All of the references to the Rose work point to the same page.  Ergo,  'Rose, 92' several times versus 2.0, 2.1, 2.2...  Potato, potato.  The System has a preference.  How much is it worth to an individual user to impose his or her preference over that of the System?   Fight with The Man over matters of citation style, or spend time on more substantive endeavors?  Not for me to say. 

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I thought the use of "ibid" was .. .. "strongly discouraged".

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@ Wendy .. once you find your suggestions list, you may find it is throwing up "864 Almost empty ref tags" again (that's what was corrected).  It may pay you (since the ref thing was changed a while ago) to expand the text inside those tags in a way that suits your normal ref styling.  I don't remember how many characters are required to stop the suggestion from popping, but it's probably at least 12 or more.  (As I've just come in from *gasp* out side, I haven't had a chance to catch up, so haven't gone to look for that ref needing more characters thing.)

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Found two things that might help:

This one (about using ibid and why it is a Bad Idea aka strongly discouraged): 

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/744097/ibid-seen-as-864-almost-empty?show=744097#q744097

.

And then there's this one:

It is not a case of a single character, e.g. dot or space.  I always have at least 5 characters in abbreviations.  Now I have several hundred suggestions to fix.  

The error message says "If length of <ref></ref> is shorter than 20 letters, it triggers an error. That means 9 letters of actual citation." 

It is kicking in for me when I have tags that are 7 or 8 characters long.

commented Jan 6 by Anonymous Moore

From here: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/746653/when-did-error-864-almost-empty-ref-tags-start?show=746653#q746653 

So, essentially, you need 20 characters (unless it changed again between January and now).

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I dunno, I never had the patience to learn the difference between ibid and op cit (please don't explain it, because I really don't care!).  You might think of it like publishing in a journal that forbids ibid.  You can write your citations with it, but you will lose that argument.  WT is like that, but without the coherent editorial policy consistently applied.  You might write 99 profiles with ibid, then get into an infinite loop reversing edits with a hardcore WT policy policeperson.  Life is short.  Just saying.

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It's way more about someone else coming along later and adding a citation between ibids, which totally wrecks the system.

<ref>name it here with x characters</ref>

<ref>oh, new name for this one</ref>

<ref>don't care if its the same, not using ibid will call it 2abc</ref>

.

As opposed to what it'd look like otherwise.

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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... what a hornet's nest I opened! I don't know what everyone's time zone is but I went to bed and awakened this morning to a mass of bewildering responses... I should have looked at the Biography closer look when I "restored" the original because I'm not sure the citations were all my originals.

To answer Smith-157141, there are many standards for citations. For example, APA does not allow "ibid"; Sorry if I came across as angry, I was not and am not; I'm grateful when someone spots an error and corrects it, but it's not necessary to make extra work for someone; and as Tardy-26 said, the profile is too old to be anything but Open, so c'est la vie.

Thank you Horace-19 for pointing out the errors of citing a simplified "Rose, 92". Frankly, it was so long ago I can remember whether I shortened it, or someone else (other than the most recent person) did. However, I'm pretty sure I didn't check the additions when I was notified of the changes -- as I know now I should have! I think this adequately answers your response, too, Paul-5413. I'll look into the minimum number of characters, and I've just learned how to use "the same source in the same profile", e.g., 2.0, 2.1, etc., so that will simplify the citations even further and in an acceptable way.

Kellett-33, I'm the only Profile Manager, so it was someone else (in both cases) who edited the profile -- because it is Open, I guess anyone can. Thanks to you and Tardy-26, I have a lot of work to do re Suggestions but as you say, prevention is worthwhile. Too bad the Suggestions are not sent automatically to one's email address for notification.

Thanks to everyone for your responses. There's always a learning curve!

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Good to hear your b.p. isn't at risk, Ms Taylor. Nor bent on revenge, but have instead crossed the river (I Ching) to use the experience as a means of growth and development. 

There's an addenda to the 20-characters (including space bar) that indicates a "short-form 20 character citation" includes the header and tail to it (<ref> and </ref> 

MY way is easier to master. There IS an occasional foray from some OTHER PM who "tidies" up but ... 

Answer 3

Can you expand the <ref>Rose, 92</ref> citations. The suggestion that is on the profile is saying the citation is too short. That citation is one or two spaces too short. That is why the other Profile Manager did some work on the profile you manage.

Restoring the profile will restore the Suggestion on the profile as well and someone else working the 864 errors (See The help page for 864 or A help video for how to fix them so others don't come alone and fix it to a style you don't like) may end up doing something similar. 

Prevention is the best cure to prevent a Data Doctor visit (The people working the Database suggestions). To prevent a visit, Go to the My Wikitree Menu then click suggestions on that drop down menu to get all profiles on your watchlist that may have suggestions on them. Always do a check as sometimes new suggestions are made so you can never be complacent. Or go to the Profile number next to it and click on suggestions on that menu which checks connected profiles (Not always your watchlist profiles).

Comments

Please see my long reply above.