Huh -- is there a good reason to split first and last into seperate parameters, in that case? I'm not sure why we couldn't just use a single parameter for the name. Maybe I'm missing something, though.
On 12/11/06, Daniel P. B. Smith wikipedia2006@dpbsmith.com wrote:
From: "Steve Bennett" stevagewp@gmail.com
The benefit of storing citations in a semantically marked up format (such as the cite templates) should be self-evident. The fact that this is difficult to achieve at the present without producing unreadable wikitext is a problem - but it doesn't mean we should abandon the goal of maintaning references at a high level.
Agree, absolutely, but I'd certainly like to see a whole lot of improvement. This is an area where I think there could be a lot of technical fixes.
I use the "cite book" template a lot.
It's a mess.
About half the time, I have no clue what to enter for "first=" and "last=". I type in something, anything, that makes the formatted citation have a reasonable _appearance_, but the semantics are all wrong.
--What if the author has a middle name or initial? What if the author customarily is known only by initials and surname?
First=Katharine Anne|Last=Porter? First=H. G.|Last=Wells?
--What if the author has an honorific or other prefix or suffix?
First=Roy|Last=Blount Jr.? First=Dr. Phil|Last=McGraw? First=Isidore|Last=Rosenfeld, M.D.?
--What if the book has no "authors" as such, only editors?
Title=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language| First=Editors|last=of the American Heritage Dictionaries? Title=The Norton Anthology of American Literature|First=M. H.| Last=Abrams (General Editor)?
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