Template:Citation Style documentation/registration

Template:TrackedCitations 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. Template:Lang: access icons do not display correctly for editors who use Modern skin.

Four access levels can be used:

• access indicator for named identifiers:
  • free: the source is free to read for anyone
• access indicators for url-holding parameters:
  • registration: a free registration is required to access the source
  • limited: there are other constraints (such as a cap on daily views) to freely access this source
  • 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 Template:Para, Template:Para, Template:Para, Template:Para, and Template:Para 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-holding and access-indicator parameters

url	access	allowed keywords
Template:Para	Template:Para	registration limited subscription
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para

Template:Para not currently defined; use its alias Template:Para

Access indicator 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.

named-identifier and access-indicator parameters

identifier	access	allowed keywords
Template:Para	Template:Para	free
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para
Template:Para	Template:Para

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:

• Template:Para
• Template:Para
• Template:Para
• Template:Para
• Template:Para
• Template:Para