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Wikipedia:COinS

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Shortcut WP:COINS

ContextObjects in Spans (COinS) is a unmaintained method of embedding latent OpenURL ContextObjects in web pages. This allows client software to retrieve bibliographic metadata and to use an OpenURL resolver to find a mediated link. A principal advantage of using COinS, rather than giving a static OpenURL, is that the client can determine which resolver to use. This allows, for instance, searching for a copy of a book in one's own library.

COinS have been added to various parts of Wikipedia. They are basically just a chunk of bibliographic information stored in a way that machines can read. This has two applications:

• The information can be converted into a full OpenURL and resolved by a local OpenURL resolver.
• The information can be stored by bibliographic tools like Zotero.^[1] The tool can download the bibliographic information from an article into a personal library for future research and retrieval.
  • Zotero also has Wikipedia export,^[2] which allows references to be dragged into a Wikipedia edit box, where they will appear formatted as Wikipedia citation templates.

So far, COinS have been added to:

• Wikipedia:Book sources – just contains the ISBN
• Many citation templates and infoboxes – see: Category:Templates generating COinS
• MediaWiki:Citethispage-content – generated when you click Cite this article; contains information for citing Wikipedia itself in other documents

For use on templates generating COinS:

{{UF-COinS}}

It adds pages to the above category.

COinS could, and should, be added to these templates:

• {{Infobox comics character}}
• {{Infobox graphic novel}}

The COinS keys used in most Citation Style 1 templates are listed at Module talk:Citation/CS1/COinS.

For example:

{{cite book |last=Bloggs |first=Fred |editor-first=John |editor-last=Doe |title=Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family |isbn=978-1-234-56789-7}}

Which renders the following HTML:

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000000F-QINU`"'<cite id="CITEREFBloggs2001" class="citation book cs1">Bloggs, Fred (January 1, 2001). "Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family". In Doe, John (ed.). ''Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors''. Book Publishers. pp.&nbsp;100–110. [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]]&nbsp;[[Special:BookSources/978-1-234-56789-7|<bdi>978-1-234-56789-7</bdi>]].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Chapter+2%3A+The+History+of+the+Bloggs+Family&rft.btitle=Big+Compilation+Book+with+Many+Chapters+and+Distinct+Chapter+Authors&rft.pages=100-110&rft.pub=Book+Publishers&rft.date=2001-01-01&rft.isbn=978-1-234-56789-7&rft.aulast=Bloggs&rft.aufirst=Fred&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWikipedia%3ACOinS" class="Z3988"></span>

Picking out the COinS keys:

Pollution[edit]

This article is missing information about other cases in which the metadata gets polluted, e.g. chemical and math title renderings. The text would be more helpful if it illustrated some additional examples.. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page.

Incorrect data in fields can pollute the metadata. For example, adding all of the authors into the deprecated |authors= parameter:

{{cite book |authors=Smith, John; Johnson, Joe; Green, Ethan |title=Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors |publisher=Book Publishers |date=January 1, 2001 |pages=100–110 |chapter=Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family |isbn=978-1-234-56789-7}}

'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000016-QINU`"'<cite class="citation book cs1">"Chapter 2: The History of the Bloggs Family". ''Big Compilation Book with Many Chapters and Distinct Chapter Authors''. Book Publishers. January 1, 2001. pp.&nbsp;100–110. [[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]]&nbsp;[[Special:BookSources/978-1-234-56789-7|<bdi>978-1-234-56789-7</bdi>]].</cite><span title="ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Chapter+2%3A+The+History+of+the+Bloggs+Family&rft.btitle=Big+Compilation+Book+with+Many+Chapters+and+Distinct+Chapter+Authors&rft.pages=100-110&rft.pub=Book+Publishers&rft.date=2001-01-01&rft.isbn=978-1-234-56789-7&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fen.wikipedia.org%3AWikipedia%3ACOinS" class="Z3988"></span> <span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{[[Template:cite book|cite book]]}}</code>: </span><span class="cs1-visible-error citation-comment">Cite uses deprecated parameter <code class="cs1-code">&#124;authors=</code> ([[Help:CS1 errors#deprecated_params|help]])</span>[[Category:CS1 errors: deprecated parameters|ω]]

This would pollute the metadata, therefore the citation template suppresses the generation of metadata for |authors=, thereby omitting vital citation data from being submitted.

• The planned citation microformat