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This template is used to cite sources in Wikipedia. It is specifically for archived public mailing lists. It calls {{Cite web}} as a backend, but has uniform parameters which will hopefully lead to a standard way of citing mailing list records.

A general discussion of the use of templates for adding citation of open-source web content to Wikipedia articles is available at citation templates.

Common form for cases where only the message is available (with current date)

  • {{cite mailing list |url= |title= |date= |accessdate=3 December, 2024 |mailinglist= |last= |first= |authorlink= }}

Full syntax (with current date)

  • <nowiki>{{cite mailing list |url= |title= |date= |accessdate=2024-12-03 |mailinglist= |last= |first= |author= |authorlink= |language= |quote= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |ref= }}

Citing http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1996/msg00021.html

{{cite mailing list | url = http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/debian-announce-1996/msg00021.html | title = Debian Linux Distribution Release 1.1 Now Available | mailinglist = debian-announce | date = 1996-06-17 | last = Perens |first = Bruce |authorlink=Bruce Perens }}

Omitting a required parameter

{{cite mailing list | title = Debian Linux Distribution Release 1.1 Now Available | mailinglist = debian-announce | date = 1996-06-17 | last = Perens |first = Bruce |authorlink=Bruce Perens }}

  • Perens, Bruce (1996-06-17). "Debian Linux Distribution Release 1.1 Now Available". debian-announce mailing list. 

Nested parameters rely on their parent parameters:

  • parent
  • OR: parent2—may be used instead of parent
    • child—may be used with parent (and is ignored if parent is not used)
    • OR: child2—may be used instead of child (and is ignored if parent2 is not used)
Where aliases are listed, only one of the parameters may be defined; if aliased parameters are defined, then only one will show.

This template embeds COinS metadata in the HTML output, allowing reference management software to retrieve bibliographic metadata; see Wikipedia:COinS.

  • Be careful using templates within the citation template, as many will add a lot of extraneous HTML or CSS that will be rendered in the meta-data.
    • Known templates that should not be used: {{smallcaps}}.

By default, sets of fields are terminated with a period (.); this can be an issue when the last field in an abbreviation or initial with a period, as two periods then display. The only solution is to not include the last period in the value for the set of fields.

  • last: Surname of author. Do not wikilink—use authorlink instead. Where the surname is usually written first—as in Chinese—or for corporate authors, simply use last to include the same format as the source. Aliases: last, author, authors, last1, author1
    • first: Given or first names of author, including title(s); for example: Firstname Middlename or Firstname M. or Dr. Firstname M., Sr. Do not wikilink—use authorlink instead. Aliases: first, first1.
    • OR: for multiple authors, use last1, first1 through last9, first9 for up to nine authors. By default, if nine authors are defined, then only eight will show and "et al." will show in place of the last author. Aliases: last1, author1 through last9, author9.
  • authorlink: Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author—not the author's website; do not wikilink. Aliases: authorlink, authorlink1, author-link, author1-link.
  • OR: for multiple authors, use authorlink1 through authorlink9. Aliases: authorlink1, author1-link through authorlink9, author9-link.
When using Shortened footnotes or Parenthetical referencing styles with templates, do not use multiple names in one field else the anchor will not match the inline link.
  • title: Title of source. Can be wikilinked to an existing Wikipedia article or url may be used to add an external link, but not both. Displays in quotes.
    • trans_title: English translation of the title if the source cited is in a foreign language. Displays in square brackets after title; if url is defined, then trans_title is included in the link. Use of the language parameter is recommended.
Titles containing certain characters will display and link incorrectly unless those characters are encoded.
newline [ ] |
space &#91; &#93; &#124;
  • mailinglist: Title of mailing list. May be wikilinked to an existing Wikipedia article. Formatted in italics.
  • type: Provides additional information about the media type of the source; format in sentence case. Displays in parentheses following the title. Examples: Thesis, Booklet, CD liner, Press release.

সাঁচ:Citation Style documentation/chapter

  • language: The language the source is written in, if not English. Displays in parentheses with "in" before the language name. Use the full language name; do not use icons or templates.
  • date: Full date of source being referenced in the same format as other publication dates in the citations.[1] Do not wikilink. Displays after the authors and enclosed in parentheses. If there is no author, then displays after publisher.
  • OR: year: Year of source being referenced.
    • month: Name of the month of publication. If you also have the day, use date instead; do not wikilink.
    • origyear: Original publication year; displays after the date or year. For clarity, please supply specifics; example: |origyear=First published 1859 or |origyear=Composed 1904.
  1. Publication dates in article references should all have the same format. See MOS:DATEUNIFY.
  • publisher: Name of publisher; may be wikilinked if relevant. Not normally included for periodicals. Corporate designations such as "Ltd", "Inc" or "GmbH" are not usually included. Displays after title; if work is defined, then publisher and location are enclosed in parentheses.
  • location: Geographical place of publication; generally not wikilinked; omit when the name of the work includes the location; examples: The Boston Globe, The Times of India. Displays preceding publisher.
  • publication-date: Date of publication when different from the date the work was written. Displays only if year or date are defined and only if different, else publication-date is used and displayed as date. Use the same format as other dates in the article; do not wikilink. Follows publisher; if work is not defined, then publication-date is preceded by "published" and enclosed in parenthesis.
  • url: URL of an online location where the text of the publication can be found. Cannot be used if title is wikilinked. If applicable, the link may point to the specific page(s) referenced. Do not link to any commercial booksellers such as Amazon.com; see WP:PAGELINKS.
    • accessdate: Full date when URL was accessed; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations;[1] do not wikilink. Can be hidden by registered editors.
    • archiveurl: The URL of an archived copy of a web page, if or in case the url becomes unavailable. Typically used to refer to services like WebCite and the Internet Archive; requires archivedate.
      • archivedate: Date when the item was archived; use the same format as other access and archive dates in the citations;[1] do not wikilink. Displays preceded by "archived from the original on".
      • deadurl: When the URL is still live, but preemptively archived, then set |deadurl=no. This changes the display order with the title retaining the original link and the archive linked at the end.
    • template doc demo: The archive parameters have error checking to ensure that all the required parameters are included, else {{citation error}} is invoked. On errors, main, help and template pages are placed into Category:Articles with incorrect citation syntax. Set |template doc demo=true to disable categorization; mainly used for documentation where the error is demonstrated.
  • format: Format of the work referred to by url; examples: PDF, DOC, XLS; HTML is implied and should not be specified; displayed in parentheses after title. Does not change external link icon.
URLs must begin with a supported URI scheme: http:// and https:// will be supported by all browsers; irc://, ircs://, ftp://, news:, mailto: and gopher:// will require a plugin or an external application and should normally be avoided. IPv6 host-names are currently not supported.
If URLs in citation template parameters contain certain characters they will display and link incorrectly. Those characters need to be percent-encoded. For example, a space must be replaced by %20. To encode the URL, replace these characters:
sp " ' < > [ ] | }
%20 %22 %27 %3c %3e %5b %5d %7c %7d
Single apostrophes do not need to be encoded; but unencoded multiples will be parsed as italic or bold markup. Single curly closing braces also do not need to be encoded; but an unencoded pair will be parsed as the double closing braces for the template transclusion.
  1. 1.0 1.1 Access and archive dates in references should all have the same format – either the format used for publication dates, or YYYY-MM-DD. See MOS:DATEUNIFY.
  • edition: When the publication has more than one edition; for example: "2nd", "Revised" etc. Displays " ed." after this field, so |edition=2nd produces "2nd ed." Does not display if a periodical field is defined.
  • page: Page in the source that supports the content. Displays preceded with ​p.​ unless |nopp=y.
  • OR: pages: Pages in the source that supports the content; separate page ranges with an en dash (–); separate non-sequential pages with a comma (,); do not use to indicate the total number of pages in the source. Displays preceded with ​pp.​ unless |nopp=y.
    • nopp: Set to y to suppress the ​p.​ or ​pp.​ notations where this is inappropriate; for example, where |page=Front cover.
  • OR: at: For sources where a page number is inappropriate or insufficient. Overridden by |page= or |pages=.
Examples: page (p.) or pages (pp.); section (sec.), column (col.), paragraph (para.); track; hours, minutes and seconds; act, scene, canto, book, part, folio, stanza, back cover, liner notes, indicia, colophon, dust jacket, verse.
  • id: A unique identifier, used where none of the specialized identifiers are applicable; wikilink or use a template as applicable.
  • laysummary: URL link to a non-technical summary or review of the source; the URL title is set to "Lay summary".
    • laysource: Name of the source of the laysummary. Displays in italics and preceded by an endash.
    • laydate: Date of the summary. Displays in parentheses.
  • quote: Relevant text quoted from the source. Displays enclosed in quotes. When supplied, the citation terminator (a period by default) is suppressed, so the quote needs to include terminating punctuation.

This template produces COinS metadata; see COinS in Wikipedia for background information.