On 12/12/06, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
It should be easy enough to add a "name" parameter and design the template so if the name parameter exists, it uses it, if it doesn't, it uses the first and last parameters (otherwise it ignores them). It's a pretty simple #if statement, it doesn't break existing use of the template and makes the template easier to use in non-standard cases.
[[WP:CITET]] doesn't mention this, but most of the citation templates obey the "author" parameter, which is what I use whenever there are multiple authors or if it's an edited collection, because you can put whatever text you like in there and the template won't try to rearrange it.
There is also the "editor" parameter on some of the templates, which surprisingly doesn't add "(ed)" or anything, it just spits out what it is given.
Basically, if you want to put some free text for the author, use the author parameter, which you can format however you want:
| author = H. G. Wells | author = Wells, H. G. | author = [[H. G. Wells|Wells, H. G.]]