Template:Citation Style documentation/registration
Citations of online sources that require registration or a subscription are acceptable in Wikipedia as documented in Verifiability § Access to sources. As a courtesy to readers and other editors, editors should signal the access restrictions of the external links included in a citation. Nota bene: access icons do not display correctly for editors who use Modern skin.
Four access levels can be used:
- Freely accessible
free: the source is free to read for anyone (this applies in particular to articles in open access) - Free registration required
registration: a free registration is required to access the source - Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required
limited: there are other constraints (such as a cap on daily views) to freely access this source - Paid subscription required
subscription: the source is only accessible via a paid subscription ("paywall")
As there are often multiple external links with different access levels in the same citation, these values are attributed to a particular external link.
Access indicators for url-holding parameters
Sources linked by |url=, |chapter-url=, |entry-url=, |article-url=, and |section-url= are presumed to be free-to-read. When they are not free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. Because the sources linked by these url-holding parameters are presumed to be free-to-read, they may not be marked as free.
| url | access | allowed keywords |
|---|---|---|
|url= |
|url-access= |
registration Free registration requiredlimited Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally requiredsubscription Paid subscription required
|
|article-url= |
|article-url-access=
| |
|chapter-url= |
|chapter-url-access=
| |
|contribution-url= |
|chapter-url-access=File:Dagger-14-plain.png
| |
|entry-url= |
|entry-url-access=
| |
|section-url= |
|section-url-access=
|
File:Dagger-14-plain.png|contribution-url-access= not currently defined; use its alias |chapter-url-access=
Access indicators for named identifiers
Links inserted by named identifiers are presumed to lie behind a paywall or registration barrier – exceptions listed below. When they are free-to-read, editors should mark those sources with the matching access-indicator parameter so that an appropriate icon is included in the rendered citation. Because the sources linked by these named-identifier parameters are not presumed to be free-to-read, they may not be marked as limited, registration, or subscription.
| identifier | access | allowed keywords |
|---|---|---|
|bibcode= |
|bibcode-access= |
free Freely accessible
|
|doi= |
|doi-access=
| |
|hdl= |
|hdl-access=File:Dagger-14-plain.png
| |
|jstor= |
|jstor-access=
| |
|ol= |
|ol-access=
| |
|osti= |
|osti-access=
|
Some named-identifiers are always free-to-read. For those named-identifiers there are no access-indicator parameters, the access level is automatically indicated by the template. These named identifiers are:
|arxiv=|biorxiv=|citeseerx=|pmc=|rfc=|ssrn=
Ambiguous access parameters
The parameters |registration=yes and |subscription=yes can also be used to indicate the access level of a citation. However, they do not indicate which link they apply to, so editors are encouraged to use |url-access=registration and |url-access=subscription instead, when the restriction applies to |url=. If the restriction applies to an identifier, these parameters should be omitted.
These parameters add a link note to the end of the citation:
- registration: (deprecated)
For online sources that require registration, setUse the appropriate access-indicator parameter|registration=yes(ory, ortrue); yields to subscription if both are set. - subscription: (deprecated)
For online sources that require a subscription, setUse the appropriate access-indicator parameter|subscription=yes(ory, ortrue); supersedes registration if both are set.
Setting |registration= or |subscription= to any value other than y, yes, or true will generate an error message.
