Help:CS1 errors - Wikipedia
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia help page
This help page is a
how-to guide
It explains concepts or processes used by the Wikipedia community. It is not one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines
, and may reflect varying levels of
consensus
This page describes the error messages reported by the
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
citations, what they mean, and how editors might resolve the errors.
Category:CS1 errors
is the general errors category and
Category:CS1 maintenance
is the general maintenance category.
Errors issued by Wikipedia's
system, in which citation templates are typically embedded, can be found at
Help:Cite errors
Controlling error message display
Preview messages
When editors preview an article, MediaWiki displays a preview message box under the Preview header. When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates have error or maintenance messages,
Module:Citation/CS1
summarizes those messages in the preview message box. Such a message box might look something like this:
This is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved!
→ Go to editing area
Script warning:
{{
cite book
}}
: this
reference
has maintenance messages
; messages may be hidden (
help
).
Script warning:
{{
cite journal
}}
: this
reference
has errors
; messages may be hidden (
help
).
The summary messages have three components:
'Script warning: ' – this prefix is provided by MediaWiki;
a colored (
green maintenance
or
red error
) message that identifies the type of template that has a message with a link to that template's documentation; wrapper templates with messages will show the name of the wrapped template, and;
'messages may be hidden' – the message suffix with a help link to this page.
Preview messages in the preview message box cannot be hidden. The preview message suffix 'messages may be hidden' means that the template's message(s) may not be visible. To learn how to show or hide template messages, see the next section (
§ Error and maintenance messages
).
Error and maintenance messages
By default,
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
error messages
are visible to all readers and
maintenance messages
are hidden from all readers.
To display
maintenance messages
in the rendered article, include the following text in your common
CSS
page (
common.css
) or your specific skin's CSS page and (
skin.css
).
(Note to new editors: those CSS pages are specific to you, and control your view of pages, by adding to your user account's
CSS
code. If you have not yet created such a page, then clicking one of the
.css
links above will yield a page that starts "Wikipedia does not have a
user page
with this exact name." Click the "Start the User:
username
filename
page" link, paste the text below, save the page, follow the instructions at the bottom of the new page on bypassing your browser's cache, and finally, in order to see the previously hidden maintenance messages, refresh the page you were editing earlier.)
root
mw-parser-output
cs1-maint
display
inline
;}
/* display Citation Style 1 maintenance messages */
To display hidden-by-default
error messages
root
mw-parser-output
cs1-hidden-error
display
inline
;}
/* display hidden Citation Style 1 error messages */
Even with this CSS installed, older pages in Wikipedia's cache may not have been updated to show these error messages even though the page is listed in one of the tracking categories. A
null edit
will resolve that issue.
After (error and/maintenance) messages are displayed, it might still not be easy to find them in a large article with a lot of citations. Messages can then be found by searching (with
Ctrl
) for "(help)" or "cs1".
To hide normally-displayed
error messages
root
mw-parser-output
cs1-visible-error
display
none
;}
/* hide Citation Style 1 error messages */
You can personalize the display of these messages (such as changing the color), but you will need to ask someone who knows CSS or at
the technical village pump
if you do not understand how.
Nota bene
: these CSS rules are not obeyed by
Navigation popups
. They also do not hide script warning messages in the Preview box that begin with "This is only a preview; your changes have not yet been saved".
Properties category highlighting
Module:Citation/CS1
adds properties categories to some CS1|2 citations. Unlike errors or maintenance needs, there is no message when a properties category is added. Properties categories may be temporary or may be perpetual. Editors can use CSS to add special styling to CS1|2 template renderings that will highlight a citation that added a properties category. For example, this template uses a long volume name:
{{cite book |title=Title |date=May–Jun 2021 |volume = 1: Long volume}}
Title
. Vol. 1: Long volume. May–Jun 2021.
If you add this to your CSS that citation will render with a
pale yellow
background:
cs1-prop-long-vol
background
#FFC
;}
Add one or more of these (with appropriate styling) to your CSS to highlight template renderings when those templates add the associated properties category:
cs1-prop-foreign-lang-source
{}
– subcategories of
Category:CS1 foreign language sources
cs1-prop-foreign-lang-source-2
{}
Category:CS1 foreign language sources (ISO 639-2)
cs1-prop-interwiki-linked-name
{}
– author, contributor, editor, interviewer, translator name(s) linked to another language Wikipedia
cs1-prop-interproj-linked-name
{}
– author, contributor, editor, interviewer, translator name(s) linked to another MediaWiki project
cs1-prop-location-test
{}
Category:CS1 location test
cs1-prop-long-vol
{}
Category:CS1: long volume value
cs1-prop-script
{}
– subcategories of
Category:CS1 uses foreign language script
cs1-prop-tracked-param
{}
– subcategories of
Category:CS1 tracked parameters
cs1-prop-unfit
{}
Category:CS1: unfit URL
cs1-prop-year-range-abbreviated
{}
Category:CS1: abbreviated year range
Most common errors
This is a list of the ten most-populated cs1|2 error categories ordered by page count.
CS1 errors: ISBN date
: 43,975
CS1 errors: missing periodical
: 30,857
CS1 errors: generic name
: 24,191
CS1 errors: periodical ignored
: 19,448
CS1 errors: missing title
: 19,347
CS1 errors: bare URL
: 11,884
CS1 errors: requires URL
: 5,104
CS1 errors: generic title
: 4,420
CS1 errors: URL
: 2,528
CS1 errors: external links
: 2,039
See also:
Category:CS1 errors
and
Category:CS1 maintenance
|access-date= requires |url=
Help desk
|access-date=
requires
|url=
The
|access-date=
is the date that the online resource addressed by
|url=
was added to the article. If
|access-date=
has been included in the citation without
|url=
then this message appears. If the citation does not use a web link, then
|access-date=
is redundant and should be removed.
When the online resource has a publication or other fixed date associated with it,
|access-date=
is of limited value though may be useful in identifying an appropriate archived version of the resource. Without
|url=
|access-date=
is not considered useful.
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|url=
or remove
|access-date=
. Editors should try to determine why the citation has
|access-date=
without
|url=
. For example, the citation may never have had a
|url=
, or
|url=
may have been removed because it links to a site that violates the creator's copyright (see
WP:COPYLINK
), or because
|url=
was deemed to be dead. If the citation never had
|url=
or it was removed for copyright violations, remove
|access-date=
. When a dead
|url=
has been removed, restore the
|url=
and if possible repair it (see
WP:LINKROT
).
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: access-date without URL
(365 pages).
|archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch
Help desk
|archive-date=
|archive-url=
timestamp mismatch; $1 suggested
Archive.org URLs have a 14-digit snapshot timestamp. This error message is displayed when the archive snapshot date is not the same as the date stated in
|archive-date=
To resolve this error, make sure that
|archive-url=
and
|archive-date=
refer to the same snapshot. This could mean that values assigned to either or both parameters need to be updated. To get the correct
|archive-date=
value, view the archived page's source, looking for a line near the bottom that starts with "FILE ARCHIVED ON". The archive date should appear on that line.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: archive-url
(181 pages).
Pages with this error in the tracking category can be fixed by the bot
WP:WAYBACKMEDIC
. Requests to run the bot can be made at
WP:URLREQ
|archive-date= requires |archive-url=
Help desk
|archive-date=
requires
|archive-url=
|archive-date=
, identifies the date that the web resource was archived. Without a matching
|archive-url=
parameter,
|archive-date=
is meaningless.
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|archive-url=
or remove
|archive-date=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: archive-url
(181 pages).
|archive-url= is malformed
Help desk
|archive-url=
is malformed:
Archive.org allows a variety of URLs to access snapshots of an archived page. Some of these are:
hhmmss/http://www.example.com
– a single snapshot; this is the preferred form for use with
|archive-url=
www.example.com
– a wildcard search results page; useful for locating an appropriate snapshot but not appropriate in a citation
201603/http://www.example.com
– incomplete timestamp; archive.org returns the most recent snapshot
www.example.com
– saves a new snapshot of the current target; do not use this form
There are two forms of the basic URL:
timestamp
>/...
– the old form
web/
timestamp
><
flags
>/...
– the new form
The error message identifies the reason for the message. The reasons are:
save command
– the archive.org URL is the save command
path
web/
was expected but something else was found
timestamp
– the timestamp portion of the URL path is:
not 14 digits
not a valid date (time portion of the timestamp is not checked):
year farther into the future than next year
year is earlier than archiver launch date of 1996 for archive.org
month is not in the range [01–12]
day is not in the range [01 – [28|29|30|31]] (as appropriate for the year and month)
flag
– the flag portion of the URL path (if present; new form URLs only) is not 2 lowercase letters followed by an underscore: 'id_'
liveweb
liveweb.archive.org
is a deprecated form of the domain name
When the archive.org URL has any of these errors, Module:Citation/CS1 does not link to archive.org in normal article view and emits an appropriate error message.
However, in article preview mode, the module creates a modified link to archive.org that uses a partial timestamp with
wildcard suffix. This new URL links to an archive.org calendar view so that editors may more easily select a suitable archived snapshot from those available at archive.org to fix the malformed
|archive-url=
link. (If no snapshots have been archived at archive.org, and the cited page is still live, this link also allows editors to save the first snapshot of the page at archive.org.)
To resolve this error, choose the URL of an appropriate snapshot from those held at archive.org.
Search for the target URL
at archive.org.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: archive-url
(181 pages).
|archive-url= requires |archive-date=
Help desk
|archive-url=
requires
|archive-date=
|archive-date=
, identifies the date that the web resource was archived.
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|archive-date=
(see acceptable date formats in
MOS:DATEFORMAT
). For web resources archived at archive.org,
the archival date can be found in the
|archive-url=
; for resources archived at webcitation.org,
the cache date is included in the archive header.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: archive-url
(181 pages).
|archive-url= requires |url=
Help desk
|archive-url=
requires
|url=
A properly formatted citation that includes
|archive-url=
and
|archive-date=
requires
|url=
. When the citation includes
|url-status=live
, the ordering of elements in the rendered citation is changed to put the original URL first.
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|url=
. For web resources archived at archive.org,
the original URL can be found in the
|archive-url=
value; for resources archived at webcitation.org,
the original URL is included in the archive header.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: archive-url
(181 pages).
|arxiv= required
Help desk
|arxiv=
required
{{
cite arXiv
}}
requires one, but not both, of the identifier parameters
|arxiv=
or
|eprint=
to specify an
arXiv
identifier.
To resolve this error, ensure that the template has
|arxiv=
or
|eprint=
with a properly constructed value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: arXiv
(0 pages).
|asin-tld= requires |asin=
Help desk
|asin-tld=
requires
|asin=
When
|asin-tld=
is used in a CS1|2 template,
|asin=
(with value) must also be present.
To resolve this error, either add the missing ASIN or remove the 'broken' parameter.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ASIN TLD
(0 pages).
|biorxiv= required
Help desk
|biorxiv=
required
{{
cite bioRxiv
}}
requires the identifier parameter
|biorxiv=
To resolve this error, ensure that the template has
|biorxiv=
with a properly constructed value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: bioRxiv
(0 pages).
|chapter= ignored
Help desk
|chapter=
ignored
Citation Style 1
templates
{{
cite web
}}
{{
cite news
}}
{{
cite journal
}}
{{
cite magazine
}}
{{
cite press release
}}
{{
cite podcast
}}
{{
cite newsgroup
}}
, as well as template
{{
citation
}}
when it uses
|work=
or any of its aliases, do not support
|chapter=
and its components
|trans-chapter=
|script-chapter=
|chapter-url=
, and
|chapter-format=
. The alias parameters
|contribution=
|entry=
|article=
|section=
, and their components, are similarly not supported.
To resolve this error:
use a more appropriate citation template (such as
{{
cite book
}}
or
{{
cite encyclopedia
}}
), or
place the content of the
|chapter=
parameter in
|title=
, or
for
{{
cite news
}}
|department=
can be used to give the name of the newspaper's section, such as "Obituaries", or
for
{{
citation
}}
, remove
|work=
or its aliases such as
|website=
and place their content in
|title=
if appropriate
move the content of the
|chapter=
parameter out of the template, before the closing
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: chapter ignored
(0 pages).
Help desk
|=
at position
This error is reported for citations with parameter values that contain invisible or non-printable characters known as
control characters
; the error includes the position at which the character can be found.
Module:Citation/CS1
detects parameter values that contain any of these characters:
non-breaking space
, U+00A0
soft hyphen
, U+00AD
replacement character
, U+FFFD
hair space
, U+200A
zero-width space
, U+200B
zero-width joiner
, U+200D (note that these are permitted as part of emoji modifiers; see note below)
horizontal tab
, U+0009 (HT)
line feed
, U+0010 (LF)
carriage return
, U+0013 (CR)
delete character
, U+007F (DEL)
C0 control
, U+0000–U+001F (NULL–US)
C1 control
, U+0080–U+009F (XXX–APC)
To resolve invisible-character errors, remove or replace the identified character. Most intentional white-space characters should be replaced with a normal space character (i.e. press your keyboard's space bar). See
MOS:NBSP
for guidance on insertion of intentional non-breaking spaces.
Because these characters are mostly invisible, the error message identifies the character's position in the parameter value counted from the left. Space characters between the assignment operator (the '=' sign) and the parameter value are not counted. If you move through the citation with the arrow keys then the cursor may stand still once at an invisible character, which can be removed with
Delete
or
← Backspace
. If you copy-paste a string to the "Characters" field at
and click "View in UniView" then the position and name of all characters is shown.
Zero-width joiner
characters (U+200D) are used as a valid part of emoji modification (for example, adding a skull emoji to a flag emoji to create a pirate flag emoji). When new modifiers are added to the emoji character set, which happens one or two times per year, those modifiers need to be added to the Citation Style 1 "Configuration" module. Editors can request this addition at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
|=
at position
Strip markers
are special sequences of characters that
MediaWiki
inserts as a place-holder for certain
XML
-like tags. These tags include...
, and
...
. The strip markers are replaced with content before the final page rendering. The module ignores math and nowiki strip markers.
To resolve strip marker errors, remove or replace the identified tag. The error message identifies the strip marker's position in the parameter value counted from the left. Space characters between the assignment operator (the '=' sign) and the parameter value are not counted when calculating the position.
Strip marker errors can also be caused by unsupported additional text or templates in parameter values—for example,
{{
ISBN
}}
in
|title=
. Resolve the problem by moving the extraneous text outside the citation template, or by removing the extraneous text or template markup, as appropriate.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: invisible characters
(117 pages).
Check |arxiv= value
Help desk
Check
|arxiv=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|arxiv=
, a test is done to see if the
arXiv
identifier conforms with the arXiv identifier scheme.
The identifier is checked for a valid number of digits in the article id; valid year and month values; and properly-placed hyphens, slashes, and dots.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|arxiv=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: arXiv
(0 pages).
Check |asin= value
Help desk
Check
|asin=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|asin=
, a test is done to see if the
ASIN
identifier contains ten upper-case alphanumeric characters without punctuation or spaces and that if the first character is numeric, that the ASIN conforms to the rules for a ten-digit
ISBN
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|asin=
value is correct.
If the
|asin=
value is correct and all-numeric, use
|isbn=
instead and delete any
|asin-tld=
parameters.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ASIN
(0 pages).
Check |asin-tld= value
Help desk
Check
|asin-tld=
value
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain a test for known
|asin-tld=
values to specify the
top-level domain
(TLD) of a given
ASIN
identifier link. The list of currently supported values is:
ae
au
br
ca
cn
de
es
fr
in
it
jp
mx
nl
pl
sa
se
sg
tr
uk
It is not necessary to provide
|asin-tld=
to specify the default (United States). If you want to specify this condition explicitly, a pseudo-value of
us
can be given to denote this.
All these values are automatically resolved to the correct TLD following one of the schemes
nn
com.
nn
co.
nn
z.
nn
, and
com
If an unsupported value is encountered, the template will issue this error message.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|asin-tld=
value is correct.
If the value is correct, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that it can be added to the list of supported values.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ASIN TLD
(0 pages).
Check |bibcode=
Help desk
Check
|bibcode=
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|bibcode=
, a test is done to see if the
bibcode
identifier has the proper format.
Bibcodes are expected to match these requirements:
length must be 19 characters (
length
')
characters in position(s): (except as specified otherwise, violations produce '
value
' in the
1–4 must be digits and must represent a year in the range of 1000 – next year (
year
')
5 must be a letter
6–8 must be letter, digit, ampersand, or dot (ampersand cannot directly precede a dot; &. (
journal
'))
9–18 must be letter, digit, or dot
19 must be a letter or dot
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|bibcode=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: bibcode
(0 pages).
Check |biorxiv= value
Help desk
Check
|biorxiv=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|biorxiv=
, a test is done to see if the
bioRxiv
identifier has the proper form. There are two valid forms, each beginning with bioRxiv's doi directory indicator and registrant code (10.1101 or 10.64898) and followed by:
six numeric characters without punctuation or spaces:
|biorxiv=10.1101/######
######
– 6-digit bioRxiv identifier
ymd format date prefix followed by six numeric characters without punctuation or spaces followed by optional version:
|biorxiv=10.1101/yyyy.mm.dd.######v#
where:
yyyy.mm.dd.
– represents a date no earlier than 11 December 2019 (
2019.12.11.
) and no later than tomorrow's date; date must be a valid date
######
– 6-digit bioRxiv identifier
v#
– optional version indicator
A common error is to include the bioRxiv
URL
10.1101/######}}
).
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|biorxiv=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: bioRxiv
(0 pages).
Check |citeseerx= value
Help desk
Check
|citeseerx=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|citeseerx=
, a test is done to see if the
CiteSeerX
identifier has the proper format.
The expected identifier is the value assigned to the
?doi=
query key in the URL of a CiteSeerX document. (This query key should not be confused with a
Digital Object Identifier
: it should not be input as
|doi=
.)
For instance, if you want to link to
, use
|citeseerx=10.1.1.220.7880
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: citeseerx
(0 pages).
Check date values in: |
Help desk
Check date values in:
|
|
, ...
Check date values in:
|year=
|date=
mismatch
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain date-holding parameters, an automated test is done to see if the dates are real dates that comply with a
subset of the date rules
in Wikipedia's Manual of Style, specifically checking for violations of
MOS:DATEFORMAT
To resolve this error, ensure that the date is an actual date and that the date format follows the
Wikipedia Manual of Style's guidance on dates
in the named parameter. See
examples of unacceptable dates and how to fix them
, below. Or, some conceptual issues to look for:
impossible dates, such as 29 February 2011 (2011 was not a leap year)
|access-date=
must specify a day, not just a month or year
|archive-date=
must specify a whole date
misplaced, incorrect, or extraneous punctuation
misplaced, incorrect, or extraneous spacing
extra or missing zeros, such as June 06 instead of June 6
extraneous text
hyphens or slashes instead of en dashes in date ranges (en dashes are required)
misspelling or improper capitalization (see
MOS:ALLCAPS
for more detail that is not in
Wikipedia Manual of Style's guidance on dates
other unacceptable date formats listed in
MOS:BADDATEFORMAT
more than one date in a date-holding parameter
days of the week (such as Monday, June 6 instead of June 6)
years before 100 AD, including BCE/BC dates. Try using parameter
|orig-date=
instead.
See
Help: Citation Style 1
for information about limitations in the CS1 citation templates' handling of date formats.
The MOS section on date ranges
describes how to separate dates in a date range. Do not use
–
, or
{{
spaced ndash
}}
as these corrupt the metadata. To add an en dash, use the
CharInsert
edit tool or see
Wikipedia:How to make dashes
. You may also copy and paste this one: –. A bot is often able to correct the separator, provided the overall format is unambiguous.
Future dates in
|date=
in CS1|2 citations are limited to current year + 1; that is, for 2026, citation dates in 2027 are acceptable but citation dates in 2028 and beyond are not.
Dates prior to 1582 are treated as
Julian calendar
dates. Dates from 1582 onward are treated as
Gregorian calendar
dates. The Julian calendar was used in some places until approximately 1923. Three Julian calendar dates in the overlap period, 29 February in the years 1700, 1800, and 1900, will cause this error message because those years are not leap years in the Gregorian calendar.
The access date (in
|access-date=
) is checked to ensure that it contains a full date (day, month, and year) and is between 15 January 2001 (the founding date of Wikipedia) and today's date plus one day, because it represents the date that an editor viewed a web-based source to verify a statement on Wikipedia. Because editors may be in time zones that are one day ahead of the UTC date, one extra day is accepted.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: dates
(797 pages).
Examples of unacceptable dates and how to fix them
Issue
Unacceptable
Acceptable
Hyphen in date range (use en dash)
|date=2002
2003
|date=2002
2003
Slash in date range (use en dash)
|date=2002
2003
or
|date=July
August 2003
|date=2002
2003
or
|date=July
August 2003
Hyphen in date range (use en dash)
|date=April
May 2004
|date=April
May 2004
Missing space around en dash for range of full dates
|date=April 2003
May 2004
|date=April 2003
May 2004
Month capitalization
|date=28
ebruary 1900
|date=28
ebruary 1900
Month capitalization
|date=28 F
EBRUARY
1900
|date=28 F
ebruary
1900
Season capitalization
|date=
pring 2011
|date=
pring 2011
Future date (typo)
|date=2
10
|date=2
01
Access date in future (see note above)
|access-date=
April 26, 2026
|access-date=April 24, 2026
Access date impossibly far in the past (typo)
|access-date=1 January 20
01
|access-date=1 January 20
10
Access date only specifies month
|access-date=
January
2015
|access-date=
12 January
2015
Ambiguous date range or year and month
|date=2002-
03
|date=2002–
20
03
|date=
March
2002
Bad abbreviation
|date=
Febr.
28, 1900
|date=
Feb
28, 1900
|date=
February
28, 1900
Nonexistent date
|date=
February 29, 1900
Undated
|date=
Undated
|date=
n.d.
Comma in month and year
|date=February
1900
|date=February 1900
Comma in season
|date=Winter
1900–1901
|date=Winter 1900–1901
Missing comma in format which requires it
|date=
February 28 1900
|date=February 28
1900
or
|date=28 February 1900
or
|date=1900-02-28
Non-date text
|date=2008
, originally 2000
|date=2008
|orig-date=2000
Zero-padding
|date=January
04
, 1987
|date=January
, 1987
Date with slashes
|date=12
87
|date=
December 6, 19
87
or
|date=
6 December 19
87
or
|date=
1987-12-06
or
|date=
12 June 19
87
or
|date=
June 12, 19
87
or
|date=
1987-06-12
Two-digit year
|date=
87
-12-06
|date=
19
87-12-06
One-digit month or day
|date=2007-
|date=2007-
03
06
Wikified date
|date=
[[
April 1
]]
[[
1999
]]
|date=
April 1, 1999
"mm-dd-yyyy" or "dd-mm-yyyy" date format
|date=
07-12-
2009
|date=
7 December
2009
or
|date=
12 July
2009
or
|date=
July 12,
2009
or
|date=
December 7,
2009
or
|date=2009-
07-12
or
|date=2009-
12-07
Quarters
|date=
3Q
1984
or
|date=
3rd Qtr.,
1984
or
|date=
Third quarter
1984
|date=
Third Quarter
1984
Named dates
|date=
Xmas
1984
or
|date=
christmas
1984
|date=
Christmas
1984
Approximate or uncertain dates
|date=
circa
1970
or
|date=
{{circa}}
1970
|date=
c.
1970
Check |doi= value
Help desk
Check
|doi=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|doi=
, a test is done to see if the prefix portion of the
DOI
value is correctly formatted and has what appears to be a valid registrant code. A proper DOI prefix begins with the
10.
directory indicator. The remaining portion of the prefix is a string of digits and the dot character which form the registrant code. When the directory indicator is
10.
, the CS1|2 templates test for a valid registrant code. Valid registrant codes:
must be composed of digits
must be in the range:
1000–9999
10000–89999
may have one or more subcodes that begin with a dot followed by digits (1000.10)
must not be 5555 (invalid/temporary/test)
Additionally, the
|doi=
value is checked to make sure that it does not contain spaces, en dashes, does not end with punctuation. Further validation of the DOI is not performed.
Do not include the
scheme and domain name from a URL. A proper
|doi=
value looks like
|doi=10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.904
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|doi=
value is correct.
In very rare cases, publishers have released works with a DOI deviating from the standard form. If you are certain that such a non-conforming DOI truly corresponds to the published work, then you can add
accept-this-as-written markup
around the identifier to suppress the error message. (Do not use this markup for DOIs which are
inactive
rather than
non-conforming
. Instead, use
|doi-broken-date=
for them.)
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: DOI
(0 pages).
Check |hdl= value
Help desk
Check
|hdl=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|hdl=
, a test is done to see if the
hdl
value looks like a properly defined value. The
|hdl=
value is checked to make sure that it does not contain spaces or en dashes and does not end with punctuation. Further validation of the hdl is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|hdl=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: HDL
(0 pages).
Check |isbn= value
Help desk
Check
|isbn=
value:
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates that contain
|isbn=
are checked to ensure that the
ISBN
is the proper length (ten or thirteen digits), that the ISBN uses the correct optional separators (simple space or hyphen), and that the final
check digit
is correct according to the ISBN specification. Only one ISBN is allowed in this field because the whole
|isbn=
value is included in the citation's
COinS
metadata
. See also
Wikipedia:COinS
. More than one ISBN, or characters that are not part of the ISBN, corrupt the COinS metadata and may also corrupt the link to
Special:BookSources
. (If relevant, they can be specified using
|id=
{{
ISBN
|...}}
instead.)
The error message
length
– ISBN is not 10 or 13 digits
checksum
– ISBN has one or more incorrect digits; look for typos and transposition
invalid character
– ISBN has one or more 'digits' that is not in the allowed set appropriate to ISBN length
invalid prefix
– 13-digit ISBNs must begin with '978' or '979'
invalid form
– 10-digit ISBNs with the mis-positioned 'X' character
invalid group id
– 13-digit ISBN begins with '9790'; this prefix / group ID combination is reserved to
ISMN
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|isbn=
value is correct, that only one ISBN is used, that the proper optional separators are used, and that no other text is included. Use the ISBN printed on the work rather than one retrieved from third-party sources. If
both are available
, use the 13-digit ISBN. When a 10-digit ISBN is used, if the check digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'.
Do not
try to resolve the error by simply recalculating the check digit. The check digit is there to check whether the main part of the number is correct. If the ISBN is failing to validate, it is likely that there is a typo in the main part of the number. In this case, recalculating the check digit results in an apparently valid ISBN that leads to the wrong source (or to nowhere).
If you only have a 10-digit ISBN,
do
use the number as-is, do not try to convert it to the 13-digit form.
If the ISBN as printed in your source is refusing to validate,
do
check both the front matter and the book cover for ISBNs. It is not uncommon for the ISBN to be misprinted in the front matter but correct on the cover.
Do
preview your edit and check that the new ISBN does now link to the correct source.
Bad ISBNs are a
possible indicator of LLM-generated text
Do
consider reviewing the surrounding text, the entire article, or recent edits to that article for AI
hallucinations
and
other hallmarks of LLM generation
In very rare cases, publishers have released books with malformed ISBNs. If you are certain that a non-conforming ISBN truly corresponds to the published work, then you can add
accept-this-as-written markup
around the identifier to suppress the error message. In many cases, books may have been reissued with a corrected ISBN. Use a corrected ISBN when possible.
Sometimes there are numbers assigned to
|isbn=
that appear to be legitimate – length is right, check digit is correct – but that aren't true ISBN numbers. This
tool
may be helpful.
See also
Wikipedia:ISBN
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ISBN
(802 pages).
Check |ismn= value
Help desk
Check
|ismn=
value
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates that contain
|ismn=
are checked to ensure that the
ISMN
is the proper length (thirteen digits), that the ISMN uses the correct optional separators (simple space or hyphen), and that the final
check digit
is correct according to the ISMN specification. Only one ISMN is allowed in this field because the whole
|ismn=
value is included in the citation's
COinS
metadata
. See also
Wikipedia:COinS
. More than one ISMN, or characters that are not part of the ISMN, corrupt the COinS metadata. (If relevant, they can be specified using
|id=
{{
ISMN
|...}}
instead.)
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|ismn=
value is correct, that only one ISMN is used, that the proper optional separators are used, and that no other text is included. Make sure that the ISMN contains exactly 13 digits.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ISMN
(0 pages).
Check |issn= value
Help desk
Check
|issn=
value
Check
|eissn=
value
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates that contain
|issn=
and/or
|eissn=
are checked to ensure that the
ISSN
is the proper length (eight digits) and that the final
check digit
validates according to the ISSN specification. Only one each of ISSN and eISSN is allowed in this field because the whole
|issn=
and
|eissn=
values are included in the citation's
COinS
metadata
. See also
Wikipedia:COinS
. (If relevant, they can be specified using
|id=
{{
ISSN
|...}}
{{
EISSN
|...}}
instead.)
The ISSN and eISSN are always rendered as two four-digit numbers separated with a hyphen.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|issn=
and
|eissn=
values are correct, that only one value per parameter is used, and that no other text is included (allowable characters are 0–9, X, and -). If the check-digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'. It may also be worth checking an actual
hyphen
(-) has been used, and not a hyphen-like character like an
endash
(–).
In very rare cases, publishers have released works with a malformed identifier. If you are certain that a non-conforming identifier truly corresponds to the published work, then you can add
accept-this-as-written markup
around the identifier to suppress the error message. In some cases, works may have been reissued with a corrected identifier. Use the corrected one when possible.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ISSN
(65 pages).
Check |jfm= value
Help desk
Check
|jfm=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|jfm=
, a test is done to see if the
JFM
identifier value looks like a properly defined value. The
|jfm=
identifier is checked to make sure that it has the form:
nn.nnnn.nn
where
is any digit 0–9. Further validation of the JFM identifier is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|jfm=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: JFM
(0 pages).
Check |jstor= value
Help desk
Check
|jstor=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|jstor=
, a test is done to see if the
JSTOR
identifier value looks like a properly defined value. Error messages are emitted when the assigned value has some form of the string 'jstor' (case-agnostic), or has a URI scheme (
or
), or has any space characters.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|jstor=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: JSTOR
(0 pages).
Check |lccn= value
Help desk
Check
|lccn=
value
The
|lccn=
parameter is for the
Library of Congress Control Number
identifier. It is checked to ensure that the identifier is the proper length and has the correct initial digits.
LCCN is a character string 8–12 characters long. The length of the LCCN dictates the character type of the initial 1–3 characters; the rightmost eight are always digits.
LCCN format description
Length
Description
all characters are digits
first character is a lower case letter
10
first two characters are either both lower case letters or both digits
11
first character is a lower case letter, second and third characters are either both lower case letters or both digits
12
first two characters are both lower case letters
Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|lccn=
value is correct and that there are no other letters, punctuation, or other characters.
When receiving this error, be on the lookout for publishers who omitted leading zeros in the LCCN following the two or four digit year. For example, an LCCN that is
properly 92-035427
could be shortened in the printed work to
92-35247
. When experimenting with inserting omitted zeroes, cross-check the finished number against the LCCN permalinks online.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: LCCN
(0 pages).
Check |medrxiv= value
Help desk
Check
|medrxiv=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|medrxiv=
, a test is done to see if the
medRxiv
identifier has the proper form. The medRxiv identifier begins with medRxiv's doi directory indicator and registrant code (10.1101 or 10.64898) and followed by:
ymd format date prefix followed by eight numeric characters without punctuation or spaces followed by optional version:
|medrxiv=10.1101/yyyy.mm.dd.########v#
where:
yyyy.mm.dd.
– represents a date no earlier than 1 January 2020 (
2020.01.01.
) and no later than tomorrow's date; date must be a valid date
########
– 8-digit medRxiv identifier
v#
– optional version indicator
A common error is to include the medRxiv
URL
10.1101/yyyy.mm.dd.########}}
).
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|medrxiv=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: medRxiv
(0 pages).
Check |message-id= value
Help desk
Check
|message-id=
value
The
|message-id=
parameter holds the unique identifier associated with a netnews message.
The value in
|message-id=
is checked to make sure that it contains
between left and right identifiers.
|message-id=
is also checked to make sure that the first character is not
and the last character is not
Module:Citation/CS1
adds the
URI scheme
news:
to the value in
|message-id=
. If the value in
|message-id=
is wrapped in
<...>
characters, the link created fails.
Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|message-id=
value is correct, that it contains
and is not wrapped in
<...>
characters.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: message-id
(0 pages).
Check |mr= value
Help desk
Check
|mr=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|mr=
, a test is done to see if the
MR
identifier value looks like a properly defined value. The
|mr=
identifier is checked to make sure that it contains only digits and that it is no more than seven digits in length. Further validation of the MR identifier is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|mr=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: MR
(0 pages).
Check |oclc= value
Help desk
Check
|oclc=
value
The
|oclc=
parameter is for the
OCLC
identifier. Only a single OCLC identifier is allowed. (If relevant, multiple OCLCs can be specified using
|id=
{{
OCLC
|...}}
instead.)
The identifier must be in one of these forms:
prefix
ocm
followed by 8 digits
prefix
ocn
followed by 9 digits
prefix
on
followed by 10 (or more) digits
prefix
(OCoLC)
followed by a variable number of digits without leading zeros
1 to 10 (or more) digits without prefix
Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|oclc=
value is correct.
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 11160000000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
A tip for fixing this error: Editors sometimes place valid
ISBN
LCCN
ASIN
, or other identifiers in
|oclc=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: OCLC
(0 pages).
Check |ol= value
Help desk
Check
|ol=
value
The
|ol=
parameter is for the
Open Library
identifier. The identifier is one or more digits followed by a last character that is either
(authors),
(books), or
(works). Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|ol=
value is correct. Do not include "OL" in the value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: OL
(0 pages).
Check |osti= value
Help desk
Check
|osti=
value
The
|osti=
parameter is for the
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
(OSTI) identifier. OSTIs are checked to ensure that the identifier is a simple number without punctuation or spaces with a value between 1018 and 23010000. Further validation is not performed.
A common error is to include the OSTI
URL
OSTI>
), or the OSTI
DOI
10.2172/
OSTI>
).
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|osti=
value is correct.
If the value is correct and lower than 1018 or larger than the currently configured limit of 23010000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: OSTI
(0 pages).
Check |-link= value
Help desk
Check
-link
value
Check
value
These link-holding parameters and their matching title-/name-holding parameters are combined to create a working
wikilink
to a related article.
Parameters combined to make wikilinks
Link-holding parameter
title-/name-holding parameter(s)
|author-link=
|author=
|last=
|last=
|first=
|contributor-link=
|contributor=
|contributor-last=
|contributor-last=
|contributor-first=
|editor-link=
|editor=
|editor-last=
|editor-last=
|editor-first=
|episode-link=
|episode=
|interviewer-link=
|interviewer=
|interviewer-last=
|interviewer-last=
|interviewer-first=
|series-link=
|series=
|subject-link=
|subject=
|title-link=
|title=
|translator-link=
|translator=
|translator-last=
|translator-last=
|translator-first=
† Parameters checked for this error may also have the enumerated forms:
|author-link
or
|author
-link=
etc.
This error occurs when any of these
|-link=
parameters contain a wikilink or a URL, or they contain any of the characters not permitted in Wikipedia article titles per
WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS
(except
(underscore), used as a replacement for spaces, and
, used as a
fragment identifier
when linking to article sections). The prohibited characters are:
< > [ ] | { }
The
|-link=
parameter value should contain only the title of a Wikipedia article or a link to a section of a Wikipedia article.
Module:Citation/CS1
checks the
|-link=
parameter values for wikimarkup and for a
URI scheme
, the protocol relative scheme
//
, etc.). Interlanguage links in any of the
|-link=
parameters require a leading colon:
:fr:Période d'exil de Caravage
While primarily intended to catch the errors mentioned above, Module:Citation/CS1 will also catch malformed interlanguage wikilinks wherever they occur. Interlanguage wikilinks that have the form:
[[fr:Période d'exil de Caravage]]
do not create visible clickable links in the article text. Instead, these links appear in the left pane in the languages list. Module:Citation/CS1 disables interlanguage links in this form and emits an error message. The correct form is:
[[:fr:Période d'exil de Caravage]]
This error can also be caused when:
there is a
|-link=
value and the matching
|=
parameter contains a wikilink.
|first=
and
|-first=
(and enumerated forms) contain a wikilink
To resolve this error, do one of the following:
Ensure that the
|-link=
value is the full name of a Wikipedia article (without brackets) or a section of an article, and not a link to an external web site.
Make sure that there are no wikilinks in the matching
|=
parameters.
If you want to link to a URL outside of Wikipedia, move the link to
|url=
or a similar parameter, if one is available in the template you are using.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: parameter link
(3 pages).
Check |pmc= value
Help desk
Check
|pmc=
value
The
|pmc=
parameter is for the
PubMed Central
identifier. PMCs are sequential numbers beginning at 1 and counting up.
Module:Citation/CS1
checks the PMC identifier to make sure that the value is a number greater than zero and less than 13300000 and that the identifier contains only digits. Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|pmc=
value is correct, and that there are no letters, punctuation, or other characters. Do not include "PMC" in the value.
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 13300000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: PMC
(0 pages).
Check |pmid= value
Help desk
Check
|pmid=
value
The
|pmid=
parameter is for the
PubMed identifier
. PMIDs are checked to ensure that the identifier is a simple number without punctuation or spaces with a value between 1 and 42400000. Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|pmid=
value is correct. If you find something that looks like a PMID and begins with "PMC", use
|pmc=
instead of
|pmid=
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 42400000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: PMID
(0 pages).
Check |rfc= value
Help desk
Check
|rfc=
value
The
|rfc=
parameter is for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
RFC
identifier (unrelated to Wikipedia's internal RfCs). IETF RFCs are checked to ensure that the identifier is a simple number without punctuation or spaces with a value between 1 and 9300. Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|rfc=
value is correct.
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 9300, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: RFC
(0 pages).
Check |sbn= value
Help desk
Check
|sbn=
value:
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates that contain
|sbn=
are checked to ensure that the
SBN
is the proper length (nine digits), that the SBN uses the correct optional separators (simple space or hyphen), and that the final
check digit
is correct according to the SBN specification. Only one SBN is allowed in this field because the whole
|sbn=
value is included in the citation's
COinS
metadata
. See also
Wikipedia:COinS
. More than one SBN, or characters that are not part of the SBN, corrupt the COinS metadata and may also corrupt the link to
Special:BookSources
The error message
length
– SBN is not 9 digits
checksum
– SBN has one or more incorrect digits; look for typos and transposition
invalid character
– SBN has one or more 'digits' that is not in the allowed set
invalid form
– mis-positioned 'X' check digit
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|sbn=
value is correct, that only one SBN is used, that the proper optional separators are used, and that no other text is included. If the check digit is a lowercase 'x', change it to an uppercase 'X'.
Do not
try to resolve the error by simply recalculating the check digit. The check digit is there to check whether the main part of the number is correct. If the SBN is failing to validate, it is likely that there is a typo in the main part of the number. In this case, recalculating the check digit results in an apparently valid ISBN that leads to the wrong source (or to nowhere).
If the SBN as printed in your source is refusing to validate,
do
check both the front matter and the book cover for SBNs. It is not uncommon for the SBN to be misprinted in the front matter but correct on the cover.
Do
preview your edit and check that the new SBN does now link to the correct source.
In very rare cases, publishers have released books with malformed SBNs. If you are certain that a non-conforming SBN truly corresponds to the published work, then you can add
accept-this-as-written markup
around the identifier to suppress the error message. In many cases, books may have been reissued with a corrected SBN. Use a corrected SBN when possible.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: SBN
(0 pages).
Check |ssrn= value
Help desk
Check
|ssrn=
value
The
|ssrn=
parameter is for the
Social Science Research Network identifier
. SSRNs are checked to ensure that the identifier is a simple number without punctuation or spaces with a value between 100 and 6300000. Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|ssrn=
value is correct.
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 6300000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: SSRN
(0 pages).
Check |s2cid= value
Help desk
Check
|s2cid=
value
The
|s2cid=
parameter is for the
Semantic Scholar
corpus identifier. S2CIDs are checked to ensure that the identifier is a simple number without punctuation or spaces with a value between 1 and 290000000. Further validation is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|s2cid=
value is correct.
If the value is correct and larger than the currently configured limit of 290000000, please report this at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that the limit can be updated.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: S2CID
(0 pages).
Check |url= value
Help desk
Check
|url=
value
Check
|archive-url=
value
External links in
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates are made from two parts: the
title
|title=
|chapter=
, etc.) and the
URL
|url=
|archive-url=
|chapter-url=
, etc.). The
|url=
parameter and other URL parameters must begin with a supported
URI scheme
. The URI schemes
, and the protocol relative scheme
//
are most commonly used;
irc://
ircs://
ftp://
news:
mailto:
and
gopher://
are also supported.
The URL scheme and host are checked to ensure that they contain only Latin characters, certain (required) punctuation, and do not contain spaces. The URL may be protocol relative (begins with
//
). If there are no spaces and the URL is not protocol relative, then the scheme must comply with RFC 3986.
Some URL domains are written with non-Latin characters. cs1|2 does not accept those kinds of URLs so they must be '
internationalized
'. Online tools are available to internationalize URLs that are written in non-Latin scripts:
"IDN Conversion Tool"
Verisign
Only enter the domain in the tool and not the full url.
Top- and second-level domain names are checked for proper form. Generally, top-level domain names must be two or more letters; second-level domain names must be two or more letters, digits, or hyphens (first and last character must be a letter or digit).
Single-letter second-level domains
are supported for:
all
cc TLDs
(the country code is not validated)
the
.org
TLD
certain letters of the
.com
TLD (q, x, z)
certain letters of the
.net
TLD (i, q)
certain other TLDs (.cash, .company, .foundation, .media, .org, .today)
Third- and subsequent-level domain names are not checked. The path portion of the URL is not checked.
There is an additional test for
|archive-url=
. The cs1|2 templates expect that
|archive-url=
will hold a unique URL for an archived snapshot of the source identified by
|url=
or
|chapter-url=
(or any of its aliases). This error message is emitted when the value assigned to
|archive-url=
is the same as the matching title or chapter URL.
To resolve this error, ensure that:
|url=
and other URL parameters contain valid URLs
URLs copy-pasted from elsewhere include the URI scheme
that the domain name uses only Latin characters
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: URL
(2,528 pages).
Check |zbl= value
Help desk
Check
|zbl=
value
When
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates contain
|zbl=
, a test is done to see if the
Zbl
identifier value looks like a properly defined value. The
|zbl=
identifier is checked to make sure that it has the form:
nnnn.nnnnn
where
is any digit 0–9. Up to three leading zeros in the first quartet may be omitted. Further validation of the Zbl identifier is not performed.
To resolve this error, ensure that the
|zbl=
value is correct.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: Zbl
(0 pages).
Cite has empty unknown parameter:
Help desk
Cite has empty unknown parameter:
|=
Cite has empty unknown parameters:
|
|
, ...
This error message highlights CS1|2 templates that hold empty parameters with names that are not known to a given CS1|2 template. This error message is a companion to
Unknown parameter |xxxx= ignored
Empty positional parameters, which typically look like two adjacent pipes in a template,
| |
, or a pipe and then the end of the template,
|}}
, are identified as numbered parameters:
|1=
. Similarly, a pipe followed by an HTML comment that encloses everything before the next pipe or closing brace,
| |
will be identified as an empty numbered parameter. Parameters that have both a pipe and an equal sign but do not have a name are identified as empty-string parameters:
|=
or
| =
|(empty string)=
. Various templates that wrap CS1|2 templates may cause this error when they use constructs like this:
{{
#if
:{{{
|}}}|
title
}}
{{{
|}}}
. When
{{{2|}}}
does not have a value, the template creates
|=
To resolve this error:
remove the extra pipe,
correct the parameter name,
remove the parameter from the CS1|2 template, or
change the citation to use a more appropriate template (e.g. change
{{
Cite document
}}
to
{{
Cite web
}}
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: empty unknown parameters
(8 pages).
Cite document requires |publisher=
Help desk
Cite document requires
|publisher=
This error message is displayed when
{{
Cite document
}}
does not have
|publisher=
. Usually, there is a more appropriate template that can be used in place of
{{cite document}}
. When
{{cite document}}
is used, it accepts a limited subset of the cs1|2 parameter suite but requires
|publisher=
To resolve this error, use a more appropriate template (preferred solution) or provide
|publisher=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing publisher
(14 pages).
Cite requires |=
Help desk
Cite requires
|=
These CS1 periodical templates require a periodical parameter. The periodical templates are:
{{
cite journal
}}
{{
cite magazine
}}
The error message suggests a periodical parameter that matches the template, but there is no requirement to use the suggested parameter; any one of these periodical parameters may be used:
|journal=
|magazine=
|newspaper=
|periodical=
|website=
|work=
In some cases, an incorrect template has been used (e.g.
{{
cite journal
}}
for a web page, book, or standalone document). The appropriate resolution in these cases is to change the incorrect template to
{{
cite web
}}
{{
cite book
}}
{{
cite document
}}
, or a different, more appropriate template.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing periodical
(30,857 pages).
Cite uses deprecated parameter |=
Help desk
Cite uses deprecated parameter
|=
Over time, some parameters have become obsolete or unnecessary. When this happens, the parameters are identified as deprecated. Editors are encouraged to use other parameters that accomplish the same purpose as those that have been deprecated. The CS1|2 deprecated parameters are listed in the following table, along with recommended replacement parameters. Parameter names are case-sensitive. Editors should expect that support for deprecated parameters will soon be withdrawn.
To resolve this error, use a supported parameter.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: deprecated parameters
(0 pages).
Deprecated CS1/CS2 parameters
Deprecated parameter
Replace with
Date
none deprecated at present
Recently removed CS1/CS2 parameters
Removed parameter
Replace with
Date
Note
|authors=
|last
|first
|author
|vauthors=
August 2024
Cite uses generic name
Help desk
|=
has generic name
Articles are listed in this category when
Module:Citation/CS1
identifies template author or editor name parameters that use place-holder names. Such names may have been provided by bots or other tools that are unable to identify the source's correct names. Pages in this category should only be added by Module:Citation/CS1.
CS1|2 maintains a short list of 'names' that are typically not the correct names for the cited source. Some examples are:
author
collaborator
contributor
directory
editor
email
google
home page
interviewer
pinterest
policy
site name
statement
submitted
super user
translator
tumblr
user
verfasser
If you are aware of other common place-holder names, please report them at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that they can be added to the list.
To resolve this error, replace the place-holder name with the source's actual author or editor name, or use a more appropriate parameter.
Example fixes:
Replace
|author=Smith, Jane, editor
with
|editor=Smith, Jane
False positives are possible. When the name is valid, wrap the parameter value in the
accept-this-as-written markup
|author=((Super User))
Please do not use this markup when it is not appropriate.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: generic name
(24,191 pages).
See also the error category
Category:CS1 errors: generic title
Cite uses generic title
Help desk
Cite uses generic title
Articles are listed in this category when
Module:Citation/CS1
identifies template
|title=
parameters that use place-holder titles. Such titles may have been provided by bots or other tools that are unable to identify the source's correct title. Pages in this category should only be added by Module:Citation/CS1.
CS1|2 maintains a short list of 'titles' that are typically not the title of the cited source. Some examples are:
404
are you a robot
hugedomains.com
internet archive wayback machine
log into facebook
login • instagram
no title
– various forms
page not found
redirecting...
subscribe to read
unknown
– various forms
usurped title
wayback machine
webcite query result
website is for sale
wikiwix's cache
If you are aware of other common place-holder titles, please report them at
Help talk:Citation Style 1
, so that they can be added to the list.
To resolve this error, replace the place-holder title with the source's actual title.
False positives are possible. When the name is valid, wrap the parameter value in the
accept-this-as-written markup
|title=((404th Fighter Aviation Regiment))
Please do not use this markup when it is not appropriate.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: generic title
(4,421 pages).
See also the maintenance category
Category:CS1 maint: archived copy as title
and the similar error category
Category:CS1 errors: generic name
|citeseerx= required
Help desk
|citeseerx=
required
{{
cite citeseerx
}}
requires the identifier parameter
|citeseerx=
To resolve this error, ensure that the template has
|citeseerx=
with a properly constructed value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: citeseerx
(0 pages).
|class= ignored
Help desk
|class=
ignored
Only used in
{{
cite arXiv
}}
templates,
|class=
is only appropriate when the template uses
|arxiv=YYMM.NNNN
or
|arxiv=YYMM.NNNNN
identifier formats; see
Cite arXiv §Usage
To resolve this error, remove
|class=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: class
(0 pages).
|contributor= ignored
Help desk
|contributor=
ignored
Only used in book citations,
|contributor=
identifies the author of a contribution, typically an afterword, foreword, introduction, preface, etc., to another (primary) author's work. This error occurs when
|contributor=
is used in a template that is not
{{
cite book
}}
or
{{
citation
}}
or is one of these two templates and one of the
|work=
parameter aliases is set.
To resolve this error, consider the
|others=
parameter, choose a more appropriate CS1 or CS2 template or remove
|contributor=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: contributor
(2 pages).
|contributor= requires |=
Help desk
|contributor=
requires
|author=
|contributor=
requires
|contribution=
Only used in book citations,
|contributor=
identifies the author of a contribution, typically an afterword, foreword, introduction, preface, etc., to another (primary) author's work. As such, the primary author is required (
|author=
or appropriate alias) as is the title of the contribution (
|contribution=
).
To resolve this error, include the book's primary author in
|author1=
, or
|last1=
|first1=
, or
|vauthors=
and include the contribution title in
|contribution=
; or consider the
|others=
parameter or remove
|contributor=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: contributor
(2 pages).
|doi-broken-date= requires |doi=
Help desk
|doi-broken-date=
requires
|doi=
When
|doi-broken-date=
is used in a CS1|2 template,
|doi=
(with value) must also be present.
To resolve this error, either add the missing DOI or remove the 'broken' parameter.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: DOI
(0 pages).
|edition= has extra text
Help desk
|edition=
has extra text
The templates are responsible for static text rendered in the citation. When
|edition=
is used in a template, cs1|2 adds the abbreviation 'ed.' to the value in the parameter so:
|edition=1st
renders as:
1st ed.
The templates emit this error message when various forms of
ed
edn
, or
edition
are found in the value assigned to
|edition=
To resolve this error, remove the extraneous text from the parameter value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: extra text: edition
(0 pages).
Empty citation
Help desk
Empty citation
Citation Style 1
or
Citation Style 2
template marked as "Empty" contains no recognizable parameter identifiers. For example, this citation is marked as "empty" even though it contains usable information:
{{cite web |http://www.foobar.com |The Foobar News}}
The citation is "empty" because it does not contain the necessary parameter identifiers (in this case
|url=
and
|title=
) that tell
{{
cite web
}}
how to use the information that the citation contains.
A citation is also marked as "empty" when it contains only parameters that it doesn't recognize:
{{cite book |titolo=The Bazquux Uprising |anno=2015}}
This citation is "empty" because the Italian-language parameters
|titolo=
and
|anno=
are not recognized as valid parameter names on the English Wikipedia.
"Empty citation" may also mean that an editor meant to use another template entirely. Perhaps the editor used
{{
citation
}}
when the intent was to use
{{
citation needed
}}
or
{{
quote
}}
To resolve this error, add appropriate parameter identifiers, translate foreign language parameter names to their English equivalents, or replace the CS1/CS2 template with a more appropriate template.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: empty citation
(41 pages).
Explicit use of et al.
Help desk
Explicit use of et al. in:
|=
This error occurs where a
Citation Style 1
or
Citation Style 2
template detects that one of the names parameters contains some form of "et al." either as a separate name parameter (
|author6=et al.
) or as a suffix added to a name list (
|author=Smith, A.B. et al.
) or first name (
|first=John, et al.
).
This error can occur in any of the author, editor, interviewer, translator, or contributor parameters.
Use the
|display-authors=
parameter instead (or other applicable
|display-<
names
>=
parameter), as documented at
Help:Citation Style 1#Display options
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: explicit use of et al.
(0 pages).
External link in |=
Help desk
External link in
|=
This error occurs when a URL is found in any parameter that is not one of these URL-holding parameters:
|archive-url=
|article-url=
|chapter-url=
|conference-url=
|contribution-url=
|entry-url=
|map-url=
|section-url=
|transcript-url=
|url=
or any of these insource locator parameters:
|page=
|p=
|pages=
|pp=
|at=
|quote-page=
|quote-pages=
To resolve this error, remove the external link from the identified parameter. Consider placing the external link in a more appropriate parameter:
for
|chapter=
, the URL may belong in
|chapter-url=
for other parameters, it may belong in
|url=
Wrapping the parameter value in double parentheses (i.e. "accept as written" markup) does not work around this error message.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: external links
(2,039 pages).
|
= missing |
Help desk
|
missing
|
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates requires a
|
parameter for each
|
parameter in a citation. Author, contributor, editor, interviewer, and translator lists are checked for proper last/first pairing. CS1|2 will emit this error message for the first mismatch it detects. If there are more last/first mismatches in a citation, subsequent mismatches are not detected.
There is no requirement that each
|
have a matching
|
To resolve this error, ensure that each
|
has a corresponding
|
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing name
(177 pages).
|format= requires |url=
Help desk
|format=
requires
|url=
|...-format=
requires
|...-url=
These errors occur when
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates use
|format=
or
|...-format=
without also providing a corresponding URL for
|url=
or
|...-url=
, respectively. The
|format=
and
|...-format=
parameters are used to specify the file format of a web resource, such as
PDF
DOC
, or
XLS
. In some cases an editor may have intended to use
|type=
to specify a kind of document, such as hard cover, paperback, or pamphlet. The
|format=
and
|...-format=
value is always displayed.
The list of
|...-format=
parameters is:
|archive-format=
|article-format=
|chapter-format=
|conference-format=
|contribution-format=
|entry-format=
|event-format=
|map-format=
|section-format=
|transcript-format=
(Citations that relied on the pre-2014, somewhat odd use of
|url=
and
|format=
may need adjustment in regard to
|chapter-format=
.)
To resolve this error, remove
|format=
or
|chapter-format=
; define
|url=
or
|chapter-url=
; or change
|format=
to
|type=
(or to
|chapter-format=
if
|chapter-url=
is used without
|url=
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: format without URL
(3 pages).
Invalid |display-
Help desk
Invalid
|display-
These error messages are emitted when
Module:Citation/CS1
identifies citations that use one or more of the
|display-
parameters with an invalid assigned
. An invalid assigned
is a number that is greater than or equal to the number of
in the associated name-list or it is non-numeric text that Module:Citation/CS1 cannot recognize as a form of the keyword
etal
To resolve this error, do one of the following:
Remove the
|display-
parameter from the citation (typically because "et al." is not appropriate in the citation)
Change the
of the
|display-
parameter such that it is less than the number of
in the name-list (thereby truncating the displayed list to the number)
Change the
of the
|display-
parameter to
etal
, which will cause "et al" to display after the last
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: display-names
(6 pages).
Invalid =
Help desk
Invalid
|=
To function properly, some parameters are limited to a certain set of acceptable values. This error message indicates that a parameter has been assigned a value that is not a member of the parameter's defined set of acceptable values.
Letters in values must all be in lower case, as shown below.
Parameters with limited acceptable values
Parameter
Acceptable values
|df=
dmy
dmy-all
mdy
mdy-all
ymd
ymd-all
|mode=
cs1
cs2
|name-list-style=
amp
ampersand
and
serial
vanc
|no-pp=
true
yes
|no-tracking=
|bibcode-access=
free
|doi-access=
|hdl-access=
|jstor-access=
|ol-access=
|osti-access=
|ssrn-access=
|s2cid-access=
|url-access=
subscription
registration
limited
|article-url-access=
|chapter-url-access=
|contribution-url-access=
|entry-url-access=
|map-url-access=
|section-url-access=
|url-status=
dead
live
deviated
unfit
usurped
(see
documentation
To resolve this error for the parameters in the table, use an appropriate value.
Support for
|ref=harv
is withdrawn because cs1|2 templates now automatically create the
CITEREF
anchor value that
|ref=harv
controlled. To resolve this error, remove
|ref=harv
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: invalid parameter value
(4 pages).
Invalid |script-=:
Help desk
Invalid
|script-=
:
The various
|script-<
param
>=
parameters are checked for proper form. When an error is detected, the error message briefly identifies the type of the error:
missing title part
– the
|script-<
param
>=
parameter has a language-code prefix but is otherwise empty
missing prefix
– the
|script-<
param
>=
parameter has text but is missing the required language-code prefix; the prefix has the form
xx:
or
xxx:
where
xx
or
xxx
is a valid
ISO 639-1
or
ISO 639-3
language code known to CS1|2 as a language that uses a non-Latin script; the colon (
) is required
unknown language code
– the
|script-<
param
>=
parameter has a (possibly valid) language code that CS1|2 does not recognize as a language using a non-Latin script
Language codes known to CS1|2 for languages that do not use a Latin script are:
ab: Abkhazian
am: Amharic
ar: Arabic
as: Assamese
az: Azerbaijani
be: Belarusian
bg: Bulgarian
bn: Bengali
bo: Tibetan
bs: Bosnian
ce: Chechen
chr: Cherokee
cu: Church Slavic
dv: Divehi
dz: Dzongkha
el: Greek
fa: Persian
grc: Ancient Greek
gu: Gujarati
he: Hebrew
hi: Hindi
hy: Armenian
ja: Japanese
ka: Georgian
kaa: Kara-Kalpak
kk: Kazakh
km: Khmer
kn: Kannada
ko: Korean
ku: Kurdish
ky: Kyrgyz
lo: Lao
mk: Macedonian
ml: Malayalam
mn: Mongolian
mni: Manipuri
mr: Marathi
my: Burmese
ne: Nepali
or: Odia
ota: Ottoman Turkish
pa: Punjabi
ps: Pashto
ru: Russian
sd: Sindhi
si: Sinhala
sr: Serbian
syc: Classical Syriac
ta: Tamil
te: Telugu
tg: Tajik
th: Thai
ti: Tigrinya
tkr: Tsakhur
tt: Tatar
ug: Uyghur
uk: Ukrainian
ur: Urdu
uz: Uzbek
yi: Yiddish
yue: Cantonese
zgh: Standard Moroccan Tamazight
zh: Chinese
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: script parameters
(0 pages).
ISBN / Date incompatibility
Help desk
ISBN / Date incompatibility
– this error message hidden by default
ISBNs
were created c. 1965. Books published before that date will not have been issued an ISBN. However, reissues of pre-ISBN publications
are
issued ISBNs, even barring the publication of a new edition. Consider double-checking whether the ISBN is valid before removing it.
To resolve this error:
Remove the ISBN when citing a source published before 1965.
If the cited edition or reissue of the book was published after 1965, ensure that
|date=
or
|year=
has the correct publication year. The reissue date is typically available by querying
WorldCat
with the reissue's ISBN. Adding
|orig-date=
may be appropriate in such cases; e.g.,
|orig-date=1st Pub. 1929
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: ISBN date
(43,975 pages).
|issue=/|number= has extra text
Help desk
|issue=
has extra text
|number=
has extra text
The templates are responsible for static text rendered in the citation. When
|issue=
or
|number=
is used in a template, cs1|2 formats the issue number according to the style corresponding with the publication type associated with the used citation template.
The templates emit this error message when various forms of issue or number prefixes (like
Iss.
or
No.
) are found in the value assigned to
|issue=
or
|number=
To resolve this error, remove the extraneous text from the parameter value. If the extraneous text removed is related to issues, please use the
|issue=
parameter rather than
|number=
for this, and vice versa. At present, the output is the same for both parameters, but this may not hold true in future versions, therefore it is important that issues and number values are used with the proper parameter as per what nomenclature is used in the actual publication.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: extra text: issue
(1 page).
Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |=
Help desk
Italic or bold markup not allowed in:
|
Italic (
''
) or bold (
'''
) wikimarkup is not allowed in publisher and periodical parameters. These parameters include:
|publisher=
|journal=
|magazine=
|newspaper=
|periodical=
|website=
|work=
To resolve this error, remove wiki markup from the named parameter's value and ensure that the template is using the correct parameters; when citing a newspaper, use
|newspaper=
for the newspaper's name, not
|publisher=
, etc.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: markup
(5 pages).
|medrxiv= required
Help desk
|medrxiv=
required
{{
cite medRxiv
}}
requires the identifier parameter
|medrxiv=
To resolve this error, ensure that the template has
|medrxiv=
with a properly constructed value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: medRxiv
(0 pages).
Missing |
Help desk
Missing
|
So that all names are listed in a rendered citation,
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates require
in
|
(and its aliases) to increment by 1 for each name in the list (author, contributor, editor, interviewer, translator). This error message is emitted when there is a 'hole' in the numbering (an author list made up of
|author1=
and
|author3=
but without
|author2=
for example).
The test will not detect a 'hole' that is larger than 1. It is presumed that when
|author
and
|author
n+1
are both not present, then the test has reached the end of the list.
To resolve this error, ensure that the numbering of the
|
parameters increments properly.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing name
(177 pages).
Missing or empty |title=
There are two slightly different error conditions that can arise when
CS1 citations
lack appropriate titles. In each case, CS1 reports this error message. The necessary resolution may vary depending on the cause of the error. The error message links to the appropriate description below.
Bare URL without a title
Help desk
|=
missing title
All
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates report this error when one of the
URL
-containing parameters cannot be paired with an associated title. This error may also occur when
|title=
cannot be linked with
|url=
because the citation also contains a conflicting
|title-link=
parameter.
URL-containing parameters and associated title parameters
URL parameters
Title parameters
|archive-url=
|title=
|article-url=
|article=
|chapter=
|contribution=
|entry=
|section=
|chapter-url=
|chapter=
|article=
|contribution=
|entry=
|section=
|conference-url=
|conference=
|event=
|contribution-url=
|contribution=
|chapter=
|article=
|entry=
|section=
|entry-url=
|entry=
|chapter=
|article=
|contribution=
|section=
|event-url=
|event=
|conference=
|map-url=
|map=
|section-url=
|section=
|chapter=
|article=
|contribution=
|entry=
|transcript-url=
|transcript=
|url=
|title=
A unique case exists for
{{
cite journal
}}
: if
|pmc=
or
|doi=
has a value,
|url=
is omitted or empty, and
|title-link=
does not point to an article, then
|title=
is automatically linked with the same URL as the PMC or DOI. This default behaviour can be overridden using
|title-link=none/pmc/doi
Because URLs are ugly and generally uninformative, it is expected that editors should provide a meaningful title for each URL. In most cases this can be accomplished by using the
|title=
parameter.
To resolve this error, provide an appropriate title for the URL-containing parameter. In the case where
|url=
and
|title-link=
are contending for
|title=
you must choose which one to keep. Consider moving
|url=
or
|title-link=
to a more suitable parameter.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: bare URL
(11,884 pages).
Citation without a title of any form
Help desk
Missing or empty
|title=
Missing or empty
|series=
This error occurs for
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates when all of
|title=
|trans-title=
, and
|script-title=
are omitted or left blank. At least one of these title parameters must be provided for each citation.
{{
cite episode
}}
will show this error if
|series=
is omitted or left blank (even if a
|title=
is provided).
{{
cite encyclopedia
}}
will show this error if
|encyclopedia=
has a value but
|entry=
(or another
|chapter=
alias) is omitted or left blank.
Sometimes this error occurs because an editor has used a CS1|2 citation as a
shortened footnote
when
{{
sfn
}}
or one of the
{{
harv
}}
family of templates would have been more appropriate. This error also occurs when an editor used
{{
citation
}}
but intended to use
{{
citation needed
}}
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|title=
|trans-title=
, and/or
|script-title=
or replace the CS1|2 template with a more appropriate template. If you are listing a periodical or an issue of a periodical in a bibliography rather than within
...
tags,
{{
List journal
}}
may be more appropriate.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing title
(19,347 pages).
Missing or empty |url=
Help desk
Missing or empty
|url=
This error message is reported by
{{
cite web
}}
{{
cite podcast
}}
, and
{{
cite mailing list
}}
when the template parameters
|url=
and
|archive-url=
are both missing, blank or not properly entered. Note that
|website=
or
|work=
is the name of the site, not the URL.
To resolve this error, provide a value for
|url=
or use a more appropriate template such as
{{
cite book
}}
{{
cite journal
}}
or other
Citation Style 1
or
Citation Style 2
template.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: requires URL
(5,104 pages).
Missing pipe
Help desk
Missing pipe in:
|=
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates report this error when one parameter has text that looks like it is a parameter missing a pipe (
). This error occurs when a template parameter value contains characters and digits followed by an equal sign. If the alphanumeric text immediately preceding the equal sign is a valid CS1|2 parameter name, the module assumes that the template is missing a pipe and emits this error message.
Some legitimate titles will contain a CS1|2 parameter name followed by an equal sign. In that case, enclose the equal sign in nowiki tags, like this:
. For most other cases, simply add the missing pipe.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: missing pipe
(0 pages).
More than one of |
Help desk
More than one of
|
|
, and
|
specified
This error occurs when a
Citation Style 1
or
Citation Style 2
template includes more than one parameter that maps to the same meaning. For example,
|author=
|last=
, and
|last1=
are all synonyms of each other, so no more than one of these parameters should ever be used in a single template.
To resolve this error, remove or modify the redundant parameter(s).
More than one of author-name-list parameters specified
More than one of editor-name-list parameters specified
This error occurs when a CS1 or CS2 template uses more than one type of author or editor name-list style. There are three kinds of incompatible author-name-list styles:
|author
and
|last
|first
(and their various aliases),
|vauthors=
, and
|authors=
and similarly, three editor-name-list styles:
|editor
and
|editor-last
|editor-first
(and their various aliases) as well as
|veditors=
To resolve this error, choose one name-list-style. Use the chosen style for both of the author and editor name-lists.
Pages with these errors are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: redundant parameter
(2 pages).
|page(s)= has extra text
Help desk
|=
has extra text
The templates are responsible for static text rendered in the citation. When
|page=
|p=
|pages=
|pp=
|quote-page=
or
|quote-pages=
is used in a template, cs1|2 inserts the appropriate pagination prefix 'p.' or 'pp.' ahead of the value in the parameter so:
|page=123
renders as:
p. 123
and:
|page=123–125
renders as:
pp. 123–125
The templates emit this error message when various forms of
pp
pg
pgs
page
, or
pages
are found in the value assigned to
|page=
|p=
|pages=
|pp=
|quote-page=
or
|quote-pages=
To resolve this error, remove the extraneous text from the parameter value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: extra text: pages
(0 pages).
|-access= requires |=
Help desk
|-access=
requires
|=
This error is reported when an
access level
has been specified for some external link, but the corresponding required parameter is missing or empty.
The parameter can be one of
Access-level specifier required parameter
Specifier
Required parameter
|article-url-access=
|article-url=
|bibcode-access=
|bibcode=
|chapter-url-access=
|chapter-url=
|contribution-url-access=
|contribution-url=
|doi-access=
|doi=
|entry-url-access=
|entry-url=
|hdl-access=
|hdl=
|jstor-access=
|jstor=
|map-url-access=
|map-url=
|ol-access=
|ol=
|osti-access=
|osti=
|section-url-access=
|section-url=
|s2cid-access=
|s2cid=
|url-access=
|url=
To resolve this error, either provide a value for the parameter, or remove the access level specification.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: param-access
(2 pages).
|= has numeric name
Help desk
|=
has numeric name
This error is reported when a name-list parameter
|author
|contributor
|editor
|interviewer
|translator
(including aliases) has an assigned value that is composed solely of digits and / or punctuation. Errors of this type are often the result of automated or semi-automated edits where the source metadata is misplaced or improperly translated.
To resolve this error, make sure that the value assigned to the name-list parameter is a name and only a name.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: numeric name
(51 pages).
|
Help desk
|periodical=
ignored
Citation Style 1
templates
{{
cite book
}}
and
{{
cite encyclopedia
}}
do not support
|periodical=
(and aliases
|journal=
|magazine=
|newspaper=
|website=
|work=
) and associated
|script-periodical=
and
|trans-periodical=
(and their aliases).
To resolve this error:
use a more appropriate citation template, or
most common: change
|title=
to
|chapter=
(or appropriate alias) and then change
|periodical=
to
|title=
, or
change
|work=
to
|series=
if
|title=
is the actual title of the book and
|work=
contains the name of a book series, or
change
|work=
to another appropriate parameter (it has been used to hold values for
|publisher=
|editor=
|via=
, and more), or
move the content of the
|periodical=
parameter out of the template, before the closing , or
delete the
|periodical=
parameter
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: periodical ignored
(19,448 pages).
|pmc-embargo-date= requires |pmc=
Help desk
|pmc-embargo-date=
requires
|pmc=
When
|pmc-embargo-date=
is used in a CS1|2 template,
|pmc=
(with value) must also be present.
To resolve this error, either add the missing PMC or remove the 'broken' parameter.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: PMC embargo
(0 pages).
|ssrn= required
Help desk
|ssrn=
required
{{
cite SSRN
}}
requires the identifier parameter
|ssrn=
To resolve this error, ensure that the template has
|ssrn=
with a properly constructed value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: SSRN
(0 pages).
Text "????" ignored
Help desk
Text "????" ignored
Unlike many Wikipedia templates, the
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates do not use unnamed or positional parameters. When a citation contains text between
vertical bars
and that text does not contain an equal sign (=), CS1|2 ignores the text and reports the error. This is true even when the text is the name of a valid parameter.
This error can also be caused by vertical bars (pipe characters) that are part of URLs or titles. When vertical bars occur in URLs, replace each vertical bar with
%7C
. When vertical bars occur in parameter values that are not URLs, replace each vertical bar with
|
or
{{
}}
To resolve this error, remove the extraneous text, add '=', add an appropriate parameter name from the template you're using to complete the parameter, or properly encode vertical bars in URLs and titles.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: unrecognized parameter
(8 pages).
|trans-= requires |= or |script-=
Help desk
|trans-=
requires
|=
or
|script-=
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates report this error when the citation has an English translation of the title in
|trans-title=
or chapter title in
|trans-chapter=
but does not have the original-language title in
|title=
or original-language chapter title in
|chapter=
To resolve this error, provide the original language title for
|title=
or chapter title for
|chapter=
. Consider adding
|language=
if not already part of the citation.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: translated title
(1 page).
Unknown parameter |= ignored
Help desk
Unknown parameter
|=
ignored
Unknown parameter
|=
ignored (
|
suggested)
Citation Style 1
and
Citation Style 2
templates report this error when the name portion of a parameter's
|name=value
pair is not recognized as a valid name. Typically, this is caused by spelling or capitalization errors or when a page is reverted to a version where the citation template did support the parameter. It can also be caused by the use of parameters that are valid in some, but not all, CS1|2 templates. For example,
{{
cite book
}}
citations are sometimes erroneously created using
|title=
and
|work=
when they should use
|chapter=
and
|title=
instead.
The CS1|2 engine does not ignore unrecognized parameters. The purpose of the citation is to properly identify the source, not to act as a repository of notes and ancillary information.
CS1|2 template parameters are lower case. CS1|2 will report this error when the parameter's name contains uppercase letters (
Xxxx, xxXx, XXXX
) but the parameter's name is defined as lowercase (
xxxx
). Some identifier parameters, like
|isbn=
|pmc=
|doi=
, etc., can be either lower case or upper case, but not of mixed case (
|isbn=
or
|ISBN=
but not
|Isbn=
). For
common parameter misspellings
, like
|pubisher=
instead of
|publisher=
and some former template parameters, CS1|2 will suggest a valid parameter name. The
list of deprecated and recently removed parameters
may contain additional information as well.
Reported unknown parameters following a
|DUPLICATE_=
scheme are created by
Citation Bot
when it finds duplicate parameters
|=
in a template.
To resolve this error, replace the erroneous parameter name with a correct one, possibly using the suggested name. Ensure that the parameter's name is correctly spelled and that there are no characters except spaces between the parameter's name and the leading vertical bar (|) or trailing equals sign (=). A list of valid parameters can be found by consulting
Help:Citation Style 1
or visiting the description page of the specific template being used, such as
{{
cite web
}}
{{
cite book
}}
{{
cite journal
}}
, etc. Consider moving information associated with the unknown parameter into an appropriate parameter or to a section of the article's talk page for preservation.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: unsupported parameter
(670 pages).
URL–wikilink conflict
Help desk
URL–wikilink conflict
External links in a rendered citation are a combination of url-holding parameters,
|url=
|chapter-url=
, etc., with title-holding parameters,
|title=
|chapter=
, etc. Title-holding parameters may be
wikilinked
to another Wikipedia article but not when there is a matching url-holding parameter in the citation. When this condition occurs, the wikilink is suppressed, the wiki markup ignored, and the rendered citation links to the external site.
With
{{
cite journal
}}
, auto-linking of the
|pmc=
or
|doi=
parameter value can cause this condition to occur implicitly without a specific url-holding parameter.
Some
templates
will also cause this error if they are part of a title-holding parameter. The error occurs when the template produces wikilinked content. For example,
{{
lang
}}
templates output a wikilinked category. Templates in title-holding parameters may also corrupt the citation's
COinS
metadata. As a general rule, avoid using templates in title-holding parameters unless you know that the template's effects are entirely visual (
{{
}}
and the like).
This type of error may also occur in identifier-based templates (
{{
cite doi
}}
, etc.). When this happens, the error message is shown in the article but the error is actually located in the identifier-based citation template.
To resolve this error, remove wikilinks from title-holding parameters that are intended to be externally linked or remove the external URL, which will allow the internal wikilinks to work as expected. If the conflict is implicitly caused through auto-linking (see above), this can be disabled using
|title-link=none
. If wikilink-producing templates are important to the citation, move them out of the CS1 template but leave them inside the citation's
...
tags. Some of the functionality provided by templates may also be available through CS1 parameters.
To resolve errors in identifier-based citation templates, the template must be edited to correct the error. Exercise caution when editing these templates because identifier-based citation templates are often used in multiple articles.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: URL–wikilink conflict
(0 pages).
Vancouver style error
Help desk
Vancouver style error:
This error is reported for citations that use
|vauthors=
|veditors=
|name-list-style=vanc
Vancouver style
restricts author or editor names to the Latin alphabet. For the purposes of this test,
Module:Citation/CS1
defines the Latin alphabet as the letters defined in the
Unicode
Latin character sets:
C0 Controls and Basic Latin
(0041–005A, 0061–007A)
C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement
(00C0–00D6, 00D8–00F6, 00F8–00FF)
Latin Extended-A
10
(0100–017F)
Latin Extended-B
11
(0180–01BF, 01C4–024F)
Latin Extended Additional
12
(1E00–1EFF)
This error is also reported when more than two initials are used: in case of more than two initials, list only the first two.
This error is also reported when a corporate or institutional author is listed in
|vauthors=
without proper delimiters. Corporate authors should be listed this way:
|vauthors=First Surname FM, Surname AB,
((
Corporate or institutional Author
))
, Last Surname XY
While normally correct, sometimes the names listed on a PMID page contain errors when the author surname has a lowercase
nobiliary particle
. For example,
PMID
17726700
lists Magnus von Knebel Doeberitz as Doeberitz Mv which is not correct. This author's name should be listed as
|vauthors=von Knebel Doeberitz M
13
Certain punctuation will be flagged as an error. For example, Unicode U+2019, right single quotation mark, causes an error because it is not a member of the Latin character sets identified above:
|vauthors=Van
t Veer M
. Replace this character with the straight (or typewriter) apostrophe:
|vauthors=Van
t Veer M
To resolve this error, Romanize author and editor names.
14
Romanizing can result in two-letter initials, for example, the Greek letter 'Θ' Romanizes to 'Th'.
15
When author names have this kind of initial, Module:Citation/CS1 can't know if this kind of initial is a typo or a legitimate Romanized character so it will emit the Vancouver error. To suppress the error after determining that the two-character initial is correct and not a typo, treat the name as if it were a corporate name by wrapping it in
doubled parentheses
|vauthors=..., Tatarinov IuS, ...
|vauthors=..., ((Tatarinov IuS)), ...
Similarly, Chinese hyphenated given names may appear in PubMed listings. For example: 'Wang Hsien-yu' may be listed on PubMed as 'Wang Hy' which will result in a Vancouver error. When this occurs, and upon verification that such names are correct, wrap them in doubled parentheses.
Specific rules for names:
16
Surnames with hyphens and other punctuation in them
Other surname rules
Given names containing punctuation, a prefix, a preposition, or particle
Degrees, titles, and honors before or after a personal name
Designations of rank within a family, such as Jr and III
Names appearing in non-roman alphabets (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Korean) or character-based languages (Chinese, Japanese)
Organizations as author
CS1|2 does not obey the semicolon-as-separator rule. Separate corporate and organizational names from each other and from individual names with a comma; wrap corporate and organizational names in doubled parentheses as described above.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: Vancouver style
(0 pages).
|volume= has extra text
Help desk
|volume=
has extra text
The templates are responsible for static text rendered in the citation. When
|volume=
is used in a template, cs1|2 formats the volume value according to the style corresponding with the publication type associated with the used citation template.
The templates emit this error message when some form of the word "volume" ("volume", "vol.") is found in the value assigned to
|volume=
To resolve this error, remove the extraneous text from the parameter value.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: extra text: volume
(0 pages).
Wikipedia Library link in
Shortcut
WP:WLERROR
WP:WLERROR
Help desk
Wikipedia Library link in
param
This error is reported when a URL-holding parameter has a URL that links to
The Wikipedia Library
. These urls include this text:
wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org
When these sorts of URLs are encountered,
Module:Citation/CS1
emits this error message and automatically sets
|url-access=subscription
because these URLs are not accessible by readers.
To resolve this error, make sure that the value assigned to the URL parameter is
not
the Wikipedia Library URL but
is
the URL of the source.
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: URL
(2,528 pages).
#invoke:Cite errors
Help desk
These error messages are emitted by
Module:Cite
, a helper module for
Module:Citation/CS1
that may be used to replace cs1|2 templates in articles that have or will exceed the
Post-expand include size
limit.
missing template name as first positional parameter
Module:Cite
requires as its first positional parameter the canonical name of one of the cs1 templates (without the
cite
prefix) or the name of the cs2 template (
citation
). The module emits this error message when the first positional parameter is missing or empty.
unknown template name: <
template name
The module emits this error message when the first positional parameter is not the canonical name of a recognized cs1|2 template.
To resolve either of these errors, make sure that the module call has one of these canonical template names as its first positional parameter value:
arxiv
av media
av media notes
biorxiv
book
citation
citeseerx
conference
document
encyclopedia
episode
interview
journal
magazine
mailing list
map
medrxiv
news
newsgroup
podcast
press release
report
serial
sign
speech
ssrn
tech report
thesis
web
Pages with this error are automatically placed in
Category:CS1 errors: cite module
(0 pages).
Notes
aa
ab
ac
ad
ae
af
ag
ah
ai
aj
ak
al
am
an
ao
ap
aq
ar
as
at
au
av
aw
ax
ay
az
ba
bb
bc
bd
be
bf
bg
bh
bi
bj
bk
bl
bm
bn
bo
bp
bq
br
bs
bt
bu
bv
bw
bx
by
bz
ca
cb
cc
cd
ce
cf
cg
Pages in the Category talk, Draft talk, File talk, Help talk, MediaWiki talk, Module talk, Portal talk, Talk, Template talk, User, User talk, and Wikipedia talk namespaces are not included in the tracking categories. In addition, pages with names matching the patterns '/[Ss]andbox', '/[Tt]estcases', '/[^/]*[Ll]og', and '/[Aa]rchive' are not included in the tracking categories.
References
"archive.org website"
Internet Archive
"webcitation.org website"
WebCite
"Understanding the arXiv identifier"
Cornell University Library
. Archived from
the original
on 2015-01-02
. Retrieved
2014-08-20
"Bibcodes"
ADS news, blogs, and help pages
. The SAO Astrophysics Data System. 2015-02-09
. Retrieved
2025-10-21
"The LCCN Namespace"
Network Development and MARC Standards Office
Library of Congress
. November 2003.
"Netnews Article Format"
Internet Engineering Task Force
. November 2009.
3.1.3
RFC
5536
"Scheme"
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax
Internet Engineering Task Force
. January 2005.
RFC
3986
"C0 Controls and Basic Latin"
(PDF)
Unicode
. Retrieved
2015-04-19
"C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement"
(PDF)
Unicode
. Retrieved
2015-04-19
"Latin Extended-A"
(PDF)
Unicode
. Retrieved
2015-04-19
"Latin Extended-B"
(PDF)
Unicode
. Retrieved
2015-04-19
"Latin Extended Additional"
(PDF)
Unicode
. Retrieved
2025-06-02
"Other surname rules"
National Center for Biotechnology Information
. 2018-05-18.
Patrias, Karen (2007).
"Names in non-roman alphabets or character-based languages"
. In Wendling, Dan (ed.).
Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers
(2nd ed.). Bethesda, Maryland, USA:
National Library of Medicine
"Greek"
(PDF)
Library of Congress
Patrias, Karen (2007). Wendling, Dan (ed.).
Citing Medicine: The NLM Style Guide for Authors, Editors, and Publishers [Internet]
(2nd ed.). Bethesda, Maryland, USA: National Library of Medicine
. Retrieved
2019-03-31
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