Template talk:R:Merriam-Webster Online

Template is inadequate

@Dan Polansky: the version of the template that you have restored is inadequate as it cannot handle situations like {{R:Merriam-Webster Online|pour/throw cold water on}}:

“pour/throw cold water on”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

— SGconlaw (talk) 14:32, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

I do not find "pour/throw cold water on" in https://www.merriam-webster.com. Which entry on their web contains that as a headword? --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:56, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. Hmmm, that used to be on the Merriam-Webster website but it looks like it has been changed. So far, it looks like the current link is able to deal with entries with punctuation marks and other non-letter characters. — SGconlaw (talk) 08:07, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

Fix to the template

@Sgconlaw, please fix the templet, it’s displaying ‘(Please provide a date or year)’. Thanks. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 18:14, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

@Inqilābī: Fixed; it was due to a change to {{cite-meta}} which was reverted and is still under discussion at "Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2021/May" (under the heading "Major revision to {{cite-meta}}"). — SGconlaw (talk) 19:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

{{R:MWO}}

Discussion moved from User talk:Sgconlaw.

I looked into this template when I realized it was breaking on entries starting with a "-", and I realized the problem is that when it does {{urlencode:{{PAGENAME}}}}, PAGENAME already escapes certain characters into their HTML codes. So -ness (for example) becomes -ness which becomes %26%2345%3Bness, resulting in a broken link. Instead, we should be using {{PAGENAMEE}} (see mw:Manual:PAGENAMEE encoding) which automatically generates a URL-compatible version of the page title. My questions are:

• Which templates are affected by this problem? I know that at least {{R:Dictionary.com}} has the same code.
• What is the purpose of |PATH}} in the template code? As far as I can tell it just changes the way spaces are encoded. Is it safe to remove?

Ioaxxere (talk) 21:57, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ioaxxere: this was quite a while back, I think. I must have used {{urlencode}} because of the hyperlinks that Merriam-Webster Online and other websites use (and in particular added PATH because the MWO website uses spaces in its URLs). I'm afraid I don't know exactly which reference templates use {{urlencode}}, or the effect which removing PATH will have. You'll just have to try it out and see if it causes problems. Sorry I can't be of more help. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)