== About ==
This page contains discussion of the '''Citation Tool''' [[Wikipedia:Semi-bots|semi-bot]].  Watch for announcements of developement progress.

A beta version is [http://gnosis.cx/wikipedia/ now live!] So far only the basic analysis of problems in m:Cite.php markup is available.  This still seems to be useful, however; for example, I identified errors in the <nowiki><ref></nowiki> markup for [http://gnosis.cx/cgi-bin/check_refs.py?pageName=User%3ACitationTool%2FRace+and+intelligence&action=Analyze Race and intelligence][[/Race and intelligence|Δ]] and [http://gnosis.cx/cgi-bin/check_refs.py?pageName=User%3ACitationTool%2FJean+Laplanche&action=Analyze Jean Laplanche][[/Jean Laplanche|Δ]] (two articles I happen to have worked on that use m:Cite.php).<ref>If you use the identified test cases for testing, please rollback your changes after use so that other users see the same "typical" m:Cite.php errors when examing the test cases.</ref>

To learn more about the use of Python for tasks such as this, see ''Text Processing in Python''.{{ref_harvard||Mertz 2003|TPiP}}

=== Features ===
Please feel free to add additional requested features to list.

# Diagnose issues related to content in non-first named references.
#* <big>✔</big> Identify cases where multiple same-named references contain content.  In such case, the non-first content will not be rendered by <nowiki><references/></nowiki>.
#* <big>✔</big> Identify cases where an empty named reference occurs before the one (or more) with content, and <nowiki><references/></nowiki> renders that note as empty.
#* Propose revision of article source with named reference content in first position.  If multiple occurrences have contents, provide a manual choice of which one is the "authentic" note content.
# In a user-guided manner, convert m:Cite.php references that look like citations to either Harvard or Label reference templates.
#* What's the criterion for "looks like"? Maybe start with ones that are entirely {cite XXX} templates.
#* Any better idea of what a citation is (as opposed to a footnote), from a robot perspective?
# Create separate "Footnotes" and "References" sections for the two types of notes.
# <big>✔</big> Put the whole thing on a web interface that lets users make the necessary decisions with checkboxes and the like.
#* <big>✔</big> The final result should be text that a user ''may'' copy into an article.  I definitely don't want to have some errant bot make bad decisions without human guidance.

=== Mixed-style example ===

I believe that a mixture of annotational footnotes and citational references is often desirable for articles.  A toy example of this style is at: [[Wikipedia talk:Footnotes/Mixed citations and footnotes]].  An example "in the wild" of something similar is at [[Jello Biafra]].  Please consider whether such a mixed-style would be useful for articles you actively edit.  Over time, this tool will aid more in creating this style.

== Caveats ==
This tool is intended to aid editors in automated page editing.  The decision to use a particular reference style within an article is a matter for the consensus of article editors.  ''Do not'' modify citation/footnote styles in an article simply because a tool exists that makes the process easier; only do so because editors agree that a particular style is ''desirable''.

== Footnotes ==
<references/>

== References ==
*{{note|TPiP}}{{cite book
  |first=David|last=Mertz
  |year=2003
  |title=Text Processing in Python
  |publisher=Addison-Wesley Professional
  |id=ISBN 0321112547
  |url=http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/|format=HTML}}