Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Archive/"cite book" ISBN database

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"cite book" ISBN database

N Functionality exists

Problem: Frequently in editing one article and having to enter all the details for a "cite book", one finds that related articles already have a "cite book" for the same book. Not only does this seem unnecessary duplication of detail, but it introduces the possibility of errors, either new or cloned.
Who would benefit: Anyone creating, using or maintaining a "cite book" type of entry in an article
Proposed solution: (Note: I'm considering this from a top-down perspective.) User interface could be, for instance, an enhanced "cite book" template or perhaps a "cite isbn" template or similar. Implementation would involve some sort of database, or perhaps an API to an external ISBN database.
More comments: This proposal is something like a database of books, so that the extended book information can be in a single place, referenced by multiple articles.

Instead of a user interface of:

"{{cite book |isbn=<ISBN> |lots... |of... |these}}" with lots of long details of authors (potentially many), authorlinks, title, publisher, year, place, etc.

one would imagine using:

"{{cite isbn |isbn=<ISBN> |...}}", supplemented only with this-instance details

as a higher-level version that fills in most of the details from that database-like entity.

It would, of course, still need some flexibility for details such as page numbers in particular usage-instance. For example, imagine two articles referencing the same simple book. One article might reference page 'p', another page 'q'. The first article would reference "{{cite isbn |isbn=<ISBN> |page=p}}"; the second "{{cite isbn |isbn=<ISBN> |page=q}}". Note how simple this is compared to each instance having to flesh out lots of additional detail.

Phabricator tickets:
Proposer: Feline Hymnic (talk) 21:34, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I could see this using the Open Library API. That said, I could see a case for a database of on-wiki book citations since we would potentially have info Open Library (or any other API) doesn't track (author/editor wiki links, etc.). = paul2520 (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This already exists to some degree. Using the source editor and the en:Wikipedia:RefToolbar gadget (which is enabled by default on enwiki), if you go to the Cite tab, choose "cite book" from the "Templates" drop down, fill in the ISBN, and hit the magnifying glass icon, it fills in the rest of the book details automatically. Similarly, with Visual Editor, when you hit the Cite button, you can paste in the ISBN on the "Automatic" tab and hit generate, and it will fill in the rest of the details automatically. Finally, the en:Wikipedia:Citation expander gadget can add a button to expand citations of the format {{cite book |isbn=978-1-23-456789-0}} with automatically generated data from the Google Books API. Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:32, 10 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not a good idea. See w:Template talk:Cite doi#RfC: Should cite doi template be deprecated?. There was a similar discussion about deprecating w:Template:Cite isbn, but it is on a currently deleted page. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 00:04, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Would a template such as {{Cite Q}} help with this? It means that most of the work's metadata can be stored on Wikidata (the "database of books" mentioned above) and still allows individual citations to add their own parameters. For example, rather than using the ISBN as the identifier, the Wikidata ID is used: {{Cite Q|Q15625490|page=42}}. SWilson (WMF) (talk) 01:20, 11 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SWilson (WMF): That {{Cite Q|Q15625490|page=42}} simplicity of style looks great. But most casual editors, however, would come along with an ISBN as the desired database key. I suspect few would come with even a vague notion of a Wikidata "Q". The ready familiarity of ISBN to almost all editors would be a major advantage. Does that database offer some sort of secondary index based on ISBN? Feline Hymnic (talk) 18:02, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Feline Hymnic: I guess it depends on how they'd be inserting the citation. If it were via the Citoid-based automatic process, then perhaps it could find a unique ID (e.g. ISBN) and check to see if there's a matching item on Wikidata, and if there's also an appropriate citation template parameter — so, yeah, maybe there's a bit of complexity there and different options! But I'm sure we could figure out some sort of helpful thing. There are lots of discussions about this topic, of course, and they go back quite a few years. As it stands, I'd say that this proposal should be archived because we do have a database of citable works (Wikidata). Could you rewrite it a bit to focus more on some smaller part of the process? Thanks! SWilson (WMF) (talk) 13:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@SWilson (WMF): Thanks for the reply. What further rewrite is needed? My proposal is from the top down. The editor-focussed interface would be something like {{cite book |isbn=978-1-23-456789-0}} or {{cite isbn |978-1-23-456789-0}} Behind the scenes it would get the data from a central database. (Perhaps, but not necessarily, this might be Wikidata. That's an implementation decision, admittedly a big one, by those who have captured the vision and are in a position to implement it.) It would probably also allow some additional data, such as page numbers, and perhaps some overrides. I hope my proposed solution and more comments above are sufficient, clear and concise; but if not, could you explain what you would like me to provide, and where, please? Thanks. Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:56, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Feline Hymnic: The reason this was archived this is that it looks like the crux of the problem you describe is already fixed: we do have a database of books, and a means of citing them multiple times without repeating the bulk of the information. The remaining part of this looks to be to have a way to cite via the ISBN rather than Wikidata ID, and that's what I was referring to when I said to focus on a smaller part of this. That said, there is another proposal (Accessing items with particular statements via Lua) which would enable the ISBN-lookup process to work as you describe. SWilson (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, yes, and yes again. Literally the number-1 missing feature for editing Wikipedia. No hyperbole from my perspective. It is unbelievable that editors are still doing all this completely unnecessary work. This missing feature alone has put me off working on articles, again and again. Rollo (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
WikiCite is probably too large for CommTech. And has some obvious detractors as above. --Izno (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
See also WikiCite/Shared Citations.--GZWDer (talk) 21:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that link. I have just added my support there. Feline Hymnic (talk) 17:45, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]