Talk:Old Norse religion/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Short citations need to include years

I am starting this section because of this edit by user:Yngvadottir and this statement on the talk page "because this article uses that horrible alternative way of sourcing that I can't get my head around" by User:S Marshall.

Examples of how to format short citations

The citation style here is that used in WP:CITE called short citations. What that means is that a short inline citation is used and it is supported by a long full citation in a references section (in this article the section is called "Sources"). The only thing unusual about the long full citations is that they are on separate lines staring with an indent ":" rather than the more usual bullet point "*" . I for one suggest that is changed. It does not really matter whether templates are or are not used in short citations. But the output should look the same (consistent style). I personally prefer to use templates, but for those who do not then it does not matter as they can construct a non-templated short citation that looks the same. If {{sfn}} is used it has a number of advantages. The most important is that if there are duplicate page numbers to a source then it automagically combine them. So {{sfn|Doe|2001|p=101}}produces a short citation like this. If I then add another sentence lower down the article it will combine the sentences. This has the advantage that if the first sentence and citation are later removed the the later one will still function properly{{sfn|Doe|2001|p=101}}. Note that {{sfn}} default to using "author, year, page number(s)" and appends a dot. If the template {{harvnb}} is used then to work with {{sfn}} it is usually put inside a "ref...tag" pair. <ref>{{harvnb|Doe|2001|p=102}}.</ref> like this. notice that I have added a dot at the end so that it appears just the same as the style used in {{sfn}}. If more than one short citation need with the same page number using {{harvnb}} then the ref tag pair has to be given a name. although any name can be used it is recommended in Citing sources#Repeated citations that "author year page" is used. So the short inline citation then looks like this<ref name="Doe 2001 p103">{{harvnb|Doe|2001|p=103}}.</ref> To repeat that short citation use <ref name="Doe 2001 p103"/> like this. The problem with named tag pairs approach is that if the sentence and the supporting first citation using <ref name="Doe 2001 p222">{{harvnb|Doe|2001|p=222}}.</ref> then a subsequent use of <ref name="Doe 2001 p222"/> fails now days with a warning. This means that over time using named reftags instead of {{sfn}} will involve more maintenance and the construction is more complicated because it is easy to accidentally include a reference to the same page number more than once. However there are cases it is desirable to use harvnb and ref tags because of issues like those described in WP:CITEBUNDLE and WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. With both {{sfn}} and {{harvnb}} the thirds parameter is to something other than a page (eg a chapter) use loc= in place of p= if the reference is to more than one page use the parameter pp= in place of p=. The last method and for those not very familiar with using templates and short citation is to simply use text like this <ref>Doe 2001, p. 301.</ref> which produces a short citation like this. Notice the comma after the "year", the space after the "p." and the dot at the end. The citation now looks just like one formatted with {{sfn}} so the style is consistent. This brings me to the issue of year. It is quite common for the same book but different edition to be used or for an author with the same name. If the year is not included it is not possible without looking through the history of an article to find out if the editor intended to link the short citation to the long one. Even if there is only one editor with the current name in the references section there may be another book added later on, so including the year is a fail-safe. In this case suppose we change the last citation to <ref>Doe p. 301.</ref> like this. At the moment it is clear by implication that the book refers "Doe 2001". However if at some later date an editor adds a book Doe, Jane (1901). My first book. OCLC 2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) to the long citations and adds a short citation elsewhere like this <ref>Doe 1911, p. 401.</ref>. Although their addition is clear, it is now impossible for a reader to tell which book is supporting the short citation <ref>Doe p. 301.</ref>. For this reason adding the year to a short citation is a fail-safe for future changes even if currently not needed. Notes references Doe, John (2001). My first book. OCLC 1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Doe, Jane (1901). My first book. OCLC 2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

user:Yngvadottir when you made this edit you included a short citations like this <ref>Abram, pp. 2, 4.</ref><ref>Andrén, p. 106.</ref> in doing so you removed for example {{sfn|Abram|2011|p=2}} that, through the use of a year, is a fuller citation. Is your citation to the same long citation in the sources section or to a different one? Please include years (and dots at the end) when adding short cations for the reasons I have explained in the collapsed text above. -- PBS (talk) 10:22, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@user:Yngvadottir in the case of Andrén there are several books in the sources section written by that author, so it is a good example of why <ref>Andrén, p. 106.</ref> is not adequate and confusing. -- PBS (talk) 10:26, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to explain it, PBS, but I find the system with years completely unmanageable. It was imposed on the article by Midnightblueowl, who started a rewrite. In deference to them, I am not reverting their rewrite wholesale but rather trying to keep their references, so I have to go section by section, and I'm afraid the imposed ref system, requiring constant scrolling to the bottom while trying to remember the year, is just too much of an added burden. So I'm using a simple system - with short titles where I notice there are multiple works by the same person cited - and I reckon when the rewrite is reasonably complete, someone such as Bloodofox can put back that overly complex style if they decide to do so (for example in order to put the article through GA). I apologize for the resulting patchwork, but the rewrite was not good and I believe it is more important to first fix it. Another point worth considering is that Midnightblueowl doesn't have a good grasp of the scholarly literature and I believe the works referenced are going to change quite a bit. Again, I apologize: it would have been vastly easier for me and looked adequate faster if I'd just reverted their changes, but I didn't want to simply negate their work. (I see you also changed the headings in the citations/further reading area; that's a further illustration of how clueless I am about the citation format Midnightblueowl chose to impose. I just can't find my way around it.) There's a section above mentioning the chnage of citation format and my objection to it, where another editor agreed that fixing the article should happen first. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:14, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: About a month or so ago the article was in an absolutely terrible state; most of it was not even referenced and of the references that were used, a wide variety of different citation styles were employed. I spent several days incorporated material from no less than forty academic reliable sources produced by historians, literary specialists, and archaeologists into the article, standardising the referencing system as I went. Yngvadottir disliked my referencing system and the length of my prose, and was concerned that I replicated some of the factual errors that appeared in some of these sources. They proceeded to rewrite various sections of the article, changing the references, removing others, and in some places adding unreferenced material. When I objected to some (not all) of their changes, we found ourselves in a situation of edit warring. I felt that the issues which I raised at the Talk Page were largely rejected out of hand, with dialogue coming to little. I have since taken a back seat as I did not want to engage in edit warring but I have misgivings about many of the changes that are being made. Yngvadottir has a very good background knowledge in Old Norse literature and I respect their expertise in this field, however I have concerns about how accessible their additions are to non-specialist readers and share your concern about the unilateral changing of the citation system and the various problems that this has caused. Personally I would like to see more discussion about future additions being made on the Talk Page rather than being imposed onto the article without any prior debate. Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Really, Midnightblueowl, I'm in a quandary here. You unilaterally changed the reference format from a mix of fairly accessible ones to one that is a barrier to editing; it was not established, it is new with you. I recognize your hard work and as a result have not merely begun again, which would have been a lot easier, but your rewrite was poorly focused and poorly informed. Unfortunately I have limited time, but I'm doing my best to work with your material, including for now keeping most of your references. The result is a patchwork, but it's more accurate than it was. (And again, I have to say, for an introductory article I disagree that what was there before was terribly bad.) Yngvadottir (talk) 17:16, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

• I've been trying to teach myself {{sfn}} with my most recent new article (which is admittedly in a half-formed state at the moment) and I'm slowly starting to make sense of it. But it's unfamiliar and draining for me to work in that way. I would propose that we return to the standard reference format, that has been used in this article for a long time, until we have the broad structure of the article laid out and an agreed list of references to work from.—S Marshall T/C 18:29, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

  If you are not comfortable with using sfn, simply add the short citation with <ref>surname year, p. page.</ref></nowiki> or <ref>surname year, pp. pages.</ref></nowiki>. -- PBS (talk) 08:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@user:Yngvadottir in the case of Andrén there are several books in the sources section written by that author, so it is a good example of why <ref>Andrén, p. 106.</ref>, is not adequate and confusing. You say "I find the system with years completely unmanageable. However it is the standard method on Wikipedia to construct short citations, and if you are going to edit cooperatively with other editors over a number of different articles you are going to come across it frequently. So lets cooperate now and use this as a test example. There are four long citations which could be supporting the short citation <ref>Andrén, p. 106.</ref>. The years are 2005, 2011, 2014 and possibly 2006 (the last is unlikely becuse there are 3 joint authors). Which of the four long citations support the short citation <ref>Andrén, p. 106.</ref>? -- PBS (talk) 07:59, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

No, I'm sorry, it is not. I know it's preferred in GA and FA, but WP:CITVAR still obtains and Midnightblueowl put the cart before the horse rewriting this article from the get-go with that new style. I agree, I need to go back over some of the early changes I made and figure out which Andrén Midnightblueowl was citing. But it was more important to start fixing the article, and I wanted to try to keep as much of their work as I could. Once the article is in decent shape, then you and Midnightblueowl and Bloodofox and all the rest of the GA gang can convert it. At that point I suspect the works cited will be even further from what they were. Yngvadottir (talk) 14:33, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@user:Yngvadottir. It is rather nice to come across someone who thinks that I am in a GA gang! I know some of those editors who edit FA and GA articles -- such as Nikkimaria -- prefer that I keep well away from the GA and FA process. The tool-labs editor interaction tool shows that Midnightblueowl, Bloodofox and I have only edited this one article in common, considering that our combined tally of edits comes to just over 200,000 that I think shows that we are not a gang. My interest in this article goes back to 2007, but I have only made 4 edits, two in 2007 and two recently (two of the 4 page moves). Midnightblueowl has made 611 edit to this page the first being in May 2008. Yngvadottir AFAICT your first edit was at 19:26, 23 August 2017. Among other things it changed inline cations that were using the template {{sfn}} into inline citations that did not.

As to the style used for edits if one looks at the expansion that took place in 17–26 April 2012 the editor who expanded the article chose to use long and short short citations. If one looks at the edit immediately before Midnightblueowl's recent edits starting on 3 August 2017, there was no consistent style it included embedded links (exposed URLs) and also citations that were duplicates. Both of these are explicitly excluded by WP:CITEVAR, and as the citation list contained both, there was no longer a consistent style. So rather than wait for the article to be fixed please fix the citations that you have broken by removed the year (as when you did so you broke the consistent style that was under development). This is something you can do quickly and it will help people who come here to read the page. -- PBS (talk) 20:54, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say I have limits. I have the flu right now, and have learned to avoid editing when I have a fever, so I'm keeping away from this or anything else challenging (what you see me doing today is the result of addiction, and I've been making errors). If you think it's that urgent, note the abbreviated titles I have been using and please feel free to fix the ambiguities I created. However, Midnightblueowl's imposition of this reference style was just that, by their choice, and I'm afraid that while I'm one of very few editors here capable of fixing their rewrite, I absolutely cannot handle the added burden of keeping their favored citation style; as it is, trying to keep as much as possible of their work requires me to concentrate ferociously because of the constant remembering of numbers and checking all the way at the bottom of the page (not to mention the fact it obscures repeated refs, of which there are a ton because of the way Midnightblueowl worked). As S Marshall has reasonably said twice now, the final format of the refs can be sorted out once the article is rewritten, and I'll add once again, and I think anyone who compares the sections I've re-done with Midnightblueowl's work can see this, the sources cited are going to change. I mentioned you along with the others because you all use this impenetrable citation style, which I know of as something used in GA and FA; my apologies for wrongly thereby associating you with GA, but most of us do not use it. Yngvadottir (talk) 22:14, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

"I'm one of very few editors here capable of fixing their rewrite". There's an alarming degree of WP:Ownership here, which is particularly concerning given the refusal to act in a collaborative manner by discussing proposed changes at the Talk Page first. "I absolutely cannot handle the added burden of keeping their favored citation style" - this is a citation style that is very, very widely used across Wikipedia, particularly among those who focus on adding content rather than gnoming. Moreover, it is very easy to use. Incredibly simple, in fact. It was the established citation style of this article before you arrived and started editing it just a few weeks ago, and if you are going to edit this article then you are expected to use it. You are now having an unrelated editor who has come in and independently raised this issue, so it isn't just me expressing my sour grapes. Please, Yngvadorrir, just listen to what other people are saying and try to act in a more collaborative manner. You may know a lot about Old Norse literature, but you do not own this article and cannot bulldoze your personal preferences onto it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:44, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

I have been bold and reverted Yngvadottir's recent changes to the prose. This was necessary because of the large number of problems with the recent changes; it does not mean that the pre-existing variant is inherently better in every way. Various unreferenced sentences had been added. Citations were messed up (various citations stated "Abram" when in reality it was Andren's work who was being referenced) and a new, problematic referencing style had been imposed. I have not, however, removed their referenced additions. Let's be clear: there should be no more unilateral changes made to this article. No more additions of material, no more changes to the prose, no more changes of the citation style, unless it has been discussed and agreed upon at the Talk Page first. This applies to me as much as to anyone else. This has to be a collaborative project. I have always been—and remain—happy to work with Yngvadottir and others to improve this article, to the extent that it would meet the criteria expected at GAN and FAC. This is the only way that we are actually going to progress with this issue and not descend into edit warring and other unpleasantness. Midnightblueowl (talk) 17:41, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

And I am going to revert your edit(s) and then see if I can fix the ambiguous citations you have both mentioned (which will take me a long time). Here is what I had just written and edit conflicted with you.

I'm sorry, Midnightblueowl, but I have been trying to respect your work. However, quite apart from the strange importance you attach to citation style, which I'm visibly not the only person to regard as something that can be changed again much later, I don't appreciate your presenting the style you introduced for the first time as having been established in the article. The article did not previously use it; it used a mix of styles (like many, possibly even most) Wikipedia articles. You attempted a rewrite you were not qualified to do. I objected here, and Bloodofox agreed with me that it might be better to start anew, but since you had done so much hard work, I have tried instead to fix it, starting with what was most urgent. Luckily, there is no deadline on Wikipedia, because I just don't have the time to complete the task rapidly, especially since you have made it hard for me (or most other editors) by using that citation style. I've flagged here, in edit summaries, and in hidden notes where the next effort should be. I apologize if I am not being as diplomatic as might be advisable, but your rewrite was bad, and it will take a while to fix it, and nobody else has stepped up who has the necessary knowledge. And I have the flu and don't want to further muck things up for readers and fellow editors by doing such a complex task right now, although I had planned to work on it yesterday and today. No, I will not submit changes for review in advance, and more than you did when you started radically rewriting the article based on poor knowledge of the field and good faith effort. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:43, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

• Reverting two weeks' worth of work over some citations is ... uncollegial. Midnightblueowl, please practice what you preached, and please also respect 3R/EW. Yngvadottir showed more than a bit of good faith by working on the material before reverting; you can't just simply dismiss that. Well you can, I guess, but you shouldn't. Drmies (talk) 18:10, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

You are right that there is no deadline on Wikipedia, which is part of the reason why you, I, and anyone else have plenty of time to discuss proposed additions and prose changes here at the Talk Page first. Wikipedia is a collaborative place and that means that we really should be working together rather than in any form of competition. I'm certainly not asking of you anything that I am not asking of myself. I will not unilaterally change the article without consulting you and others first. However, I do expect the same from you. The only alternative is for ongoing edit warring or for one of us to pack up and leave. From your editing history I can see that you are primarily a WikiGnome with little or no time spent actually sitting down and writing an article, getting it to the status where it could be recognised as GA or FA status. Would I be right in thinking that this is actually the first time that you have focused on writing a particular article? It may be true that I do not have a PhD in the study of Old Norse religion and Old Norse literature and am thus not an accredited expert in the field. But I have read extensively on the subject. Moreover, I do know how to write a good Wikipedia article, based on the appropriate use of sources, in accordance with Wikipedia's policy. That's what I intend to do here, and I would be more than happy to do so with you. Please, work with me on this. Let's talk about things before we make changes; we don't have any deadlines, we can take things easy. Midnightblueowl (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Let me suggest then that "there should be no more unilateral changes made to this article", as you said earlier in bold print, is laying down a dictate where possible intent and tone simply don't jive; fortunately the most recent comment has a more positive tone. Changing a bunch of citations is work, but patching up broken relationships is more work. Have you all agreed on a referencing system? Agree on that and move on--are you all agreed on content? structure? sourcing? There's so much more exciting stuff to talk about. Drmies (talk) 19:48, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

A revert by User:FreeKnowledgeCreator seems to be nothing more than an attempt to harass someone they've been picking fights with for years. The user has shown no interest in this article, or in this talk page discussion. Drmies (talk) 02:20, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Drmies, you may wish to re-familiarize yourself with WP:AGF. Please do not make unjustified assumptions about why I would make an edit. I have no interest in picking a fight with you, or reverting your edits for the sake of it. You greatly over-estimate your importance to me (you personally are of no real interest to me at all, in fact). You are also wrong in asserting that I have shown "no interest in such topics"; I noted some time ago to Midnightblueowl on my talk page, in response to a question from her, that articles on religious subjects interest me. I have edited them sporadically, even if you were not there to notice, Drimes. Note that I made three edits to this article back in August of this year, well before the present dispute - see this and the two edits that follow. Now with that aspect of matters dealt with, can we discuss the article? Having carefully reviewed the entire discussion above, I do not find Midnightblueowl's position unreasonable. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:00, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Yet here you are, reverting me within four hours after my edit. Drmies (talk) 03:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to endlessly respond to accusations of bad faith editing. You asserted that I have shown no prior interest in this article or topic area; you are wrong, and the edit I linked to above shows as much. Now unless you want to discuss something substantive - something which actually relates to the article rather than to perceived personal grudges - there is nothing more for me to say. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I think {{sfnm}} is a step too far for those learning how to use templates. As some sentence were already supported by <ref>{{harv}}; {{harv}}.</ref>; I have converted {{sfnm}} templates to that format. -- PBS (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

There are several short citation to "Simek" but no long citation. The only book for which Simek is the author is currently in the "Further Reading" section:

Simek, Rudolf (2008). Dictionary of Northern Mythology (new ed.). Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-0859915137.

If this is the reference book then it needs moving in to the Sources section and the short should be changed to link to it.{{sfn|Simek|2008|p=num}} or {{sfn|Simek|2008|loc=section name}} or both {{sfn|Simek|2008|p=num|loc=, section name}}

The citations for Abram and Davidson, are a mess because there is more than one book and some of the short citations simply give author and page number so it is impossible to tie them to the correct source. I say two Abram books because some of the citations are to <ref name=Abram73>Abram, "Old Norse and Germanic Religion", p. 73.</ref> This may be a mistake on the author because other link are to <ref>Andrén, "Old Norse and Germanic Religion" ...</ref> and in fact there is only one Abram citation. -- PBS (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

The inline citations to Turville-Petre without a year are unclear because one of them is to Turville-Petre , Volume 2, p. 150. are all the others the one in the Sources section (1975) is that volume 1? what are the publishing details for Volume 2?

The inline citations to Näsström without a year are unclear because there are two different long citations in the Sources section.

I have now been through just the first four of the list of short citations without years and all of them have problems!. I suggest that those who have access to the books check the references and add years to all of the short citations. -- PBS (talk) 11:27, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: The citations that now state "Abram, "Old Norse and Germanic Religion" (Yngvadottir's wording) originally stated "Andrén 2011". It is problems like these which have led me to believe that the most constructive way forward lies in reverting all of Yngvaddotir's recent, unilaterally-imposed formatting changes (albeit not their useful additions). When it comes to Old Norse literature, they know their stuff, but the complete mess of a formatting change (and the repeated, blunt refusal to desist from changing the citation format when asked) just make me bang my head against a brick wall. When I've tried reverting the formatting of citations to their previous, correct form, either Yngvadottir or Drmies simply edit war to restore it. Deeply frustrating. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there may be instances where in trying to preserve as much of your work as possible—including your choice of survey books to cite—I got the wrong name. I could go over my edits and fix that, and undoubtedly should. (Others could have, but I should.) I'm sorry, I tried to preserve as much as I could of your citations, and evidently messed up. The constant remembering and scrolling is very hard for me, and in any case at a later date the article will need a good shake-out for referencing. We should not for example be using either Jolly's work on the change of religions in Anglo-Saxon England or Näsström's work on her view of Freyja for general points on Norse religion.

Others, including Drmies, are now editing the article, including the lead and iconography sections, which I had avoided looking at for now. They need extensive re-rewriting, because as was discussed way, way above, the Midnightblueowl rewrite was poorly planned and badly executed. Since I'm a bit better today and have a little bit of time, I had thought to make a short response here and then start on the next section I had planned to work on, but I would now edit conflict with several people, so I probably shouldn't try.

The statement above that I don't appear to have written any articles—it may have since been removed—has shaken my faith in your ability as a researcher, Midnightblueowl. If you haven't already, you might simply look at my user page. No, I don't take articles to GA or FA, although some that I have worked on have later passed those processes with editors who care about such things, including Bloodofox. Admittedly, I'm an odd editor, partly because I edit Wikipedia under varying degrees of distraction and limits on my time, so often I choose a little task that I can do under such circumstances. Which should really be nobody else's business in a volunteer internet project. I envisage this article being rewritten to a satisfactory standard and then someone—presumably you with or without others—taking it through GA, since that's what you do and you have already claimed it on your user page.

Any article curator is open to the charge of ownership, but in this case we have competing rewrite processes. You claimed this article as yours to rewrite, making a slew of bold changes, even after issues were raised about them here, and even while admitting you were learning as you went. You imposed the citation style as part of that bold rewrite, although you have claimed ever after that it was "established". It was not. Your insistence on its not being even temporarily changed is ownership. Unfortunately it's impenetrable (probably to many readers, too) and as such was just one too much of a problem for me in trying to fix your poor work. I know the work was in good faith, so I wanted to save as much of it as I could, but I have limits.

Drmies says we should discuss the shape, sourcing, and other basic issues regarding the article. That would have made sense if the rewrite had been a collaborative effort from the start, but it wasn't, it was a bold rewrite that needs to be redone. To honor your work, that means revising it and then discussing what further changes need to be made. Personally, I see this article as introductory, which means it should be brief and link to our specialized articles: I've been adding wikilinks you did not make. (At least as important as links to concepts of religious studies.) On the other hand, it's also the appropriate place for covering the quite varying views of Norse religion that different scholars have had and continue to have. And the lead section should match whatever that comes out looking like, so should either be rewritten several times as the article changes or be reworked last. For what it's worth, that's the overarching plan in the back of my head.

I'd like to continue working on this article, but there went an hour of my writing time. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:06, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir up to now I have assumed that you were editing in good faith, but this edit was either made in bad faith or stupidity. I have spent a lot of time explaining why editors should add years to the short citations: (1) so that the citations meet the requirements of a consistent style -- note I specifically stated that there is no need to use templates to do this and gave I examples in this talk page section with and without tempates; (2) as a fail-safe, because author even if adequate at the moment is not future proof. In adding {{full}} and an explanation on this talk page, I expect a reasonable editor behaving cooperatively to remove the {{full}} template and insert the year, because thanks to your error "—I got the wrong name" you created a very good example of why the year is a desirable fail-safe to include.-- PBS (talk) 19:03, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: Then put it down to stupidity. You like years - I get it. To me they are noise; they require the reader to click, and me to scroll allllllllll the way down, to see what is being referenced. The Abrams error, for which I apologize, comes from my not realizing we were over-identifying one single work, which in turn comes from my trying to be respectful to Midnightblueowl's work (which is why I am confident I am still editing in good faith; I am still trying to preserve their references rather than rewriting from a blank slate). The short title is a better failsafe even when it's an idiot like me; the title didn't match the author. And moreover, not giving the relevant topic title in a reference to Simek's work is shortchanging the reader; it's a specialized encyclopedia, and several pages include multiple topics. The article is undergoing extensive rewriting. Like many Wikipedia articles, it in the past had a mixed citation system. It can have a mixed citation system until the rewrite is complete. And it needs to so long as I am to work on it, I'm afraid, because I can't handle sfn and because I need a visual cue of which sections I have rewritten or added (particularly because the order of sections has needed and will need changing). You and others can and should impose a consistent citation format when the rewrite is at the polishing stage; I would think that would also be the time to decide whether all works cited should go in that system or whether some articles used only once or a couple of times should just be cited in full in the footnote. Also what is cited will continue to change: there are a huge number of survey books, for example, and currently for many points we're citing what either Midnighblueowl or I had first to hand. Yngvadottir (talk) 19:42, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

"Simek's work" see above I explained how to handle those with page numbers and the section header. You write "It can have a mixed citation system until the rewrite is complete" but if you look at my last posing that is not adequate because for example, when I looked at the first four authors in the list of short citation, they could not be linked to long citations because there was not enough information in the short citation. This is why it is necessary to put in the correct citation when it is added, not when the article reaches a certain standard. I have spent literally hours in the past with the tool Wikipedia:WikiBlame trying to work out which specific edition of a text an editor added some time in the past when that editor is no longer around to ask. If they had added author, date page number, when they added the citation, in most cases it is easy to link to the long citation. In this case I have pointed out the problems with four authors for example:

Näsström, p. 12. which of the two long citation support that short citation?

This is not something to be left for later. If a year had been added this would not be a problem. Running Wikipedia:WikiBlame would probably identify it, but that is time consuming.

It is really quite rare for two editions published on the same year to be referenced in an article, but it is very common for two different edition or two different titles with different years to be referenced in an article. Wikiepdia has a mechanism in its templates for dealing with two article by the same author in the same year. It allows for the date parameter to take a year consisting of four numbers and a single letter. --PBS (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir with this edit I think you have disruptively by changing my good faith edit. Your comment of "Reverted 2 edits by PBS sneaking sfn refs back into rewritten sections on the argument that Abrams requires a year: only one work by author cited. Identified work cited in a Davidson and 2 Näsström refs. Tweak" is a statement of bad faith as my edits stated "Added year to all Abram citations". You said in the RfC below "and in any case I'm incompetent to adapt some of my citations to one format. At this stage, worrying about citation format is impeding progress on the article". Yet you actions contradict what you say as you clearly are "worrying about citation format", and altering edits that others have made in good faith. I am ping the others in this conversation and the RfC below to see if they agree with me that reverting changes to citations that others have made in good faith to meet one style in that edit is disruptive: User:Midnightblueowl, user:FreeKnowledgeCreator, User:Drmies, User:Chris troutman User:S Marshall -- PBS (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

• We need to go back to WP:V. The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article. An editor who can't deal with sfn (which is, after all, an obscure variant citation style; I've been here ten years and I'm only just figuring it out) is trying to develop the article, and when you use sfn in this way, she can't identify which source you're talking about. I mean, we could argue about where the behavioural problem here lies (i.e. Is it with unilaterally reverting sfn-related edits? Is it with unilaterally enforcing them? Was it unilaterally converting an established article to sfn in the first place?), but that goes nowhere good. I would prefer to go back to what WP:V says: it has to be clear. So we need to let Yngvadottir work in a way that lets her identify the sources unambiguously, and switch over to sfn at a later point.—S Marshall T/C 10:49, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

@PBS: I stand by my edit summary. I have told you why we don't need a year for Abram; you simply changed the citation format for all the Abram citations because of your personal preference for numbers. I went through and at the same time fixed what other problems I could see that I had created in trying to work with Midnightblueowl's edits; I noted these in my edit summary in case someone saw other problems I needed to fix. I'm afraid we simply disagree on the need for a year; I note you did not insert a year for any other author we are citing only once; and I have said I will fix any actual errors I have introduced, and so I went ahead and did so for those I found in that edit. I am afraid I cannot agree as to who is editing in bad faith in this exchange, because I am out of understanding of your insistence on redundant info in the Abram citations that gets in the way of my continuing to rework the text. A side effect is that for the past week I haven't been able to do any new rewriting. I apologize for that. I have limited time. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:55, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

PBS please don't ping me for stuff like that. I don't care--if someone wants to impose some system, that's fine, but let them do it. That goes for you, it goes for Y. I'm sure you're not pinging me here as an admin, and I'm telling you, as an editor I couldn't care less. I'm just a drive-by editor. Drmies (talk) 23:46, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

The point is Drmies, I had to ping all who have expressed an opinion or none, otherwise I could be accused meatpuppetry and selectively pinging like-minded editors. -- PBS (talk) 09:53, 25 September 2017 (UTC)

"Rites of passage and other rituals"

First I'd like to thank Yngvadottir for creating a new section on "Rites of passage and other rituals" and for adding additional information on rites of adoption and weddings into this article. It's good stuff. What I would like to suggest however is that we rename the section to simply "Rites of passage". The wording "and other rituals" feels a little too amorphous - after all, other rituals could mean almost anything, including to the sacrifices to which we already devote a whole section. I'd also like to suggest that we merge the first two paragraphs here into one. The first paragraph is made up only of two fairly short sentences; the second paragraph contains only a single sentence. This results in these two paragraphs being really a bit too short and a merger would be appropriate, particularly as they both deal with broad issues of childhood, family identity and kinship. Does anyone have any particular objections to this proposal? Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:31, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep at least some short paragraphs in this article; some things are so lengthy, especially at present, that the prose looks a bit overpowering. I also have the thought that someone may usefully come along with an amplification. So that's why it's paragraphed taht way, and I'd rather not - instead I'd like to make the burial bit shorter if possible. "Other rituals" came from my uncertainty as to whether all of these were unequivocally rites of passage, plus my thought that I might have forgotten a rite that it would be better to include there than under worship. I guess I'm not averse to simplifying the section title if everybody feels the vatni ausa and blood brotherhood can be safely classified that way. Yngvadottir (talk) 18:55, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

In that case I'll leave the mini-sentence paragraphs as they are for now. It is possible that they could each be expanded a little in future. I'll trim off "and other rituals" from the section title, with the proviso that we might wish to re-add it (or add something else) in future. As for the burial section, I can't really see anything that could easily be removed, to be honest, except perhaps the detail on the at Kaupang ship burial (even then, I would rather keep it as an interesting mini 'case study' for the reader). Burial is a big component of what we know about Old Norse religion, particularly through archaeology. What we could do is branch off the 'burial' as a separate sub-section (or sub-sub-section), which would thereby shorten the overall "Rites of passage" section. How would that work? Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

No, I brought it into there because that's its religious context. It's purely the archaeological circumstances - a culture that largely used wood and that did not have many distinctive temples in any case - that gives burial suck prominence. Religiously, we have no evidence this was a religion that placed great emphasis on burial rites as opposed to other rites. Yngvadottir (talk) 17:00, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

That's why I said "Burial is a big component of what we know about Old Norse religion, particularly through archaeology." I certainly do not claim that burial and death rites were inherently a big part of Old Norse religion, just that they are a big part of what we know about the subject. It's for that reason that I suggest it could warrant a separate subsection (or perhaps a sub-sub section in the "Rites of passage" sub-section). Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:16, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

• Would we say the manumission of a thrall is a "rite of passage" within the meaning of this article?—S Marshall T/C 21:51, 22 September 2017 (UTC)

Bloodofox or one of the other experts will probably remind me of something I'm forgetting, but I don't recall any instances of heathen/pagan manumission. Vǫlundr secures his own freedom, for example. So I can't answer the question regarding its religious dimension. Yngvadottir (talk) 15:58, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

The Viking Answer Lady tells us about a manumission ritual but I'm still not sure how reliable she is.—S Marshall T/C 16:44, 24 September 2017 (UTC)