Module talk:Find sources
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 | This module was considered for deletion on 2017 May 14. The result of the discussion was "no consensus". |
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Too complicated
This module seems to me like it is needlessly complicated. Why is it a good idea to store the configuration for each template in its own module subpage instead of in the wikitext of the template? That appears to make it harder to edit for no apparent reason. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 02:32, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- I am guessing because auto-documentation template also uses it? — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 11:33, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- It would still be possible to implement autodoc even without /templates cfg pages. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 19:59, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
- As I have just done. I also think that the /autodoc template config pages should also be in Wikitext and associated with the template, but it's not clear exactly where. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:09, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 February 15#Module:Find sources/templates/find sources. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 21:54, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Nomination for deletion of Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources
Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 22:00, 15 February 2019 (UTC)
Add Library Genesis?
I increasingly find Library Genesis to be a very helpful search engine for academic papers, more so than Google Books. In particular, it excells at finding book reviews. Ex. compare LG (blacklisted link removed -- * Pppery * it has begun... 01:05, 31 July 2020 (UTC)) return hits and Google Scholar. I first noticed it few weeks ago while looking for reviews for this book I wrote an entry on. If anyone is concerned about legality, note that LG has been mentioned at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request (with a caution note) for quite a while now, with no objections/controversy. We could add a link to such note to the template through a tiny hperlink to address any related concerns. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:30, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
Have
been planning on adding Sage and Cambridge Core. Any objections? ∯WBGconverse 06:52, 7 June 2019 (UTC)
- Fine with me. No objections, just like I presume no objections to my proposal above. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:34, 11 June 2019 (UTC)
Inclusion of NYT
I don't particularly have an issue with it, but I do want to just bring up for discussion the fact that the NYT is the only newspaper included with this template. While it is probably true that the NYT has the best claim to being the newspaper of record for the English speaking world, I'm saying that as an American, and I can imagine those in other English speaking countries objecting that the NYT is not the best source for them, and that perhaps another paper should be included, or that no specific paper should be included, so that Google News (a more dynamic way to find a quality source, but also not as curated) can be used instead. I guess my point is mainly that this template in some way implies that we're endorsing the NYT over every other newspaper, and while in a practical sense that's probably the reasonable thing to do for the situations this template is used for, we should at least have some discussion to establish a consensus. (Also, as a minor cosmetic note, NYT ought to be italicized, and I'd appreciate someone with template editing privileges making that fix.) - Sdkb (talk) 05:27, 28 June 2019 (UTC)
Excluding non-Wikipedia source
I noticed the template's Google news search excludes this article, though the word 'wikipedia' does not seem to appear anywhere in it.
See: Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
- @Oornery: My best guess as to why this happens is that when Google crawled that page, it contained the text "Wikipedia", but it doesn't contain it any more. (Maybe it appeared in the "latest articles" feed or something like that.) However, if you notice a pattern of this occurring, it might be a good idea to report it to Google, as it might be a problem with their algorithm. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:29, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
Internet Archive?
I use Internet Archive all the time to look for sources, especially on old topics. Would it make sense to include a full-text search of archive.org on this template? AleatoryPonderings (talk) 20:57, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
- Hmm, interesting thought. I do get a lot of sources value out of the Internet Archive, but I also see it as sort of a more advanced tool less essential than some of the others listed. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:44, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
- Fair enough—certainly a bit clunkier to use, too. Just a thought. AleatoryPonderings (talk) 02:53, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 24 July 2020
 | This edit request to Template:Find sources has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please italicize NYT
per MOS:ITALICS, since it's an abbreviation of the name of a newspaper. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:47, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
- Sorry, I don't see the guidance you are referring to. Can you please quote the relevant MOS guidance? Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:17, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
- Jonesey95, sure:
Italics should be used for the following types of names and titles, or abbreviations thereof:
- Major works of art and artifice, such as albums, books, video games, films, musicals, operas, symphonies, paintings, sculptures, newspapers,...
- To editors Sdkb and Jonesey95:
done, and also in {{Find video game sources}}. P.I. Ellsworth ed. put'r there 08:20, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 30 July 2020
| | This edit request to Module:Find sources and Template:Afd2 has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please copy Module:Find sources/sandbox to Module:Find sources. This will allow the template to generate search queries for arbitrary page titles (specified by |title=) with parenthetical disambiguators separated from the main part of the title (this is already supported for the current page title).
Please also copy Template:Afd2/sandbox to Template:Afd2, which will make use of this new parameter.
I posted a section on Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#Find sources and parenthetical disambiguiators proposing these changes. There has been no response in the past week. The testcases are unaffected. The change is demonstrated in one of my sandboxes. Danski454 (talk) 20:16, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
- Done Please document the new parameter. * Pppery * it has begun... 01:02, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 19 August 2020
| | This edit request to Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please add a link to Bing and DuckDuckGo as many people use these search engines as well when looking for sources on Wikipedia. (I use Bing myself.) Aasim 01:06, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Not done: please make your requested changes to the module's sandbox first; see WP:TESTCASES. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:32, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
Template-protected edit request on 26 November 2020
| | This edit request to Module:Find sources/templates/Find sources has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Please add a link to the Open Library, a book-oriented project of the Internet Archive. I've drafted the subpage Module:Find_sources/links/openlibrary for review and testing. I would have sandbox tested it, but can't seem to find my way to the right sandbox. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:42, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
- This should be discussed at least a little before editing this widely used module. Taking the simple
{{Find sources}}example from the {{Find sources}} documentation, what would the new output look like? Has there been any discussion about adding this? Johnuniq (talk) 22:58, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
Change "-wikipedia" to "-site:wikipedia.org"
The former is too broad; mentioning Wikipedia in of itself shouldn't be enough to disqualify a source. If some sources *cite* Wikipedia then the person looking for the sources should just not use those sources themself, rather than potentially being unaware of any source which happens to mention a widely-used website. For any topics *related* to Wikipedia especially, this template would be completely useless.
Also, the "newspapers" link should just add "&tbm=nws" as a query parameter instead of adding "site:news.google.com/newspapers" to the query string.
PBZE (talk) 04:38, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
- I was originally considering making the same request, but now I'm uncertain about it. The proposed change should be weighed, pros and cons. Using a negative site keyword, will exclude pages hosted at wikipedia.org only. Using the negative wikipedia keyword, but minus the "site:" prefix, will avoid any pages containing "wikipedia" on them. This could theoretically exclude good pages that happen to have the token "wikipedia", but I suspect that is minimal. On the flip side, it may exclude some forks and mirrors who credit wikipedia, but only if the "site:" prefix is not included. My hunch is that including the "site:" prefix will hurt more than it helps, but this would need some investigation. Mathglot (talk) 19:56, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
Why does this link to Google?
While it may be true that Google indexes a lot of websites, the use of its services requires the user to be subjected to proprietary software; furthermore, it is well-known that Google is very privacy-invasive. On a site like Wikipedia, which was founded on the ethos of freedom and ethics in software and technology, why are we heavily linking to a company's services that are the complete opposite of that? DesertPipeline (talk) 10:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
Systemic bias
As mentioned a couple of times before, I think including the NYT is symptomatic of a systemic bias in favour of the USA. I don't think it should be there as the only newspaper represented. Stifle (talk) 09:51, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
- What would you suggest doing instead? Nikkimaria (talk) 11:40, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
Please monitor WT:MED discussion
Hi. It's brand new yet, but you may wish to monitor WT:MED#Announcing new template Find medical sources. If and when it stabilizes, we can discuss what to do at that point. Mathglot (talk) 01:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia Library text
"TWL" is not a widely known acronym, even among experienced Wikipedians. I'd suggest changing it to "Wikipedia Library". {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- @Sdkb:That's a pretty long name, and might cause the "find sources" links to wrap at some window widths, when space is at a premium. Sample links currently for
{{find sources|Egypt}}: - Sample links including Wikipedia Library instead of TWL:
- How 'bout, "WikiLib", instead? Alternatively, I've been thinking about adding tooltips and this would be a good candidate for one. (Tooltips active in the last four links in second row above.) I know, I know; a tooltip won't help mobile users, but I can't see a mobile user going through the long and involved sequence of steps starting from a list of find source links, to TWL (heh heh...), and then the whole procedure required to log in, find a source, generate a citation, and come back to the original article and add it. I do some intricate stuff on mobile, but this would be just too much for me. If there's anyone who would attempt it on their smartphone, I know who it is. Let's see what Cullen328 says. Mathglot (talk) 21:28, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
- I consider my smartphone to be a miniature computer capable of doing almost any type of edit that can be done on a desktop computer. The problem is not the devices. It is the crappy mobile sites and mobile apps that the WMF has cooked up. That is why I always use the desktop site on my mobile phone, and I go though the process described above all the time. It is not really difficult. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:36, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Google News vs. Newspapers
Having links to both Google News and Google Newspapers is confusing. The News link is the one most people are going to want, whereas the newspapers link goes to a subset of the results from Google Books (which also apparently has newspapers) and is therefore redundant to the books link we already have. I'd suggest removing the newspapers link. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:11, 10 August 2021 (UTC)
Google News: "Archives", not "recent"
If anyone can figure out the URL structure, I think Google News links should go to a results list with the "archives" option set (which fetches results from all time without prejudice toward more recent items) rather than the default "recent" option. This will turn up more relevant results for more obscure topics and avoid WP:RECENTISM. Thoughts? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:13, 10 August 2021 (UTC)