Talk:Channel Tunnel

Citation for traffic chart

10mmsocket asked for a source for the traffic chart. Since 2008, File:Chunnel traffic.svg has had sources on the file page. I am not sure how the new chart extension can/should link to its data and sources. Commander Keane (talk) 21:46, 12 July 2025 (UTC)

Books by author Wilson

Does anyone else find the references, for example 'Wilson pp.44' confusing? There are two books that have an author Wilson. How does a person know easily which book this refers to? I changed this so instead the references showed the full details of the book, with page numbers using the Rp template but someone has reverted this. Surely it needs clarification.LateFatherKarma (talk) 07:19, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Should have the publication year in brackets after the author's surname Murgatroyd49 (talk) 08:14, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Surely the references and sources should also not have the same book listed five times? LateFatherKarma (talk) 09:04, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Surely clarity and less clutter is better? Going from a single reference for the same source, to five (again) is not key to keeping references easy to understand. LateFatherKarma (talk) 09:15, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Use the {{sfn}} template for the individual uses. Make sure the full details of the book are in the bibliography/souces section. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:17, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I used the Rp template, which is a method I appear to be able to use. Page numbers were added in the copy, this removed the same source being listed in references and sources five times. I searched the edit history so I could establish which book by authors that included Wilson, certain references came from. Then it got reverted. Now the other author for the book has been put in, so which book is referred to is clear, but that leaves the same book listed five times in references and sources. Unnecessary clutter. Furthermore, some of these do not tell the reader the title of the book even. I am unhappy that my helpful edits were reverted, I followed Wikipedia guidelines and the result of it being reverted is references that help readers less. Doing the above took me quite a while. I am reticent to contribute further to this page, if helpful contributions get reverted. I question the motivation for my work being reverted. I may be a new user but I am trying to contribute with good intentions and of course trying to learn too.LateFatherKarma (talk) 10:10, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I will say, I do personally prefer the use of the {{rp}} and {{r}} templates - they are in my opinion easier to read. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:58, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion.LateFatherKarma (talk) 13:00, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

LateFatherKarma: please don't get disheartened with Wikipedia, it can be a rough place (for new and old) but I can assure you I appreciate your efforts.

As far as I know {{rp}} is a newer style of referencing and to stop constant flipping between new and old styles based on personal preference a discussion is required for a change.

Redrose64's edit summary mentioned WP:CITEVAR.

I don't mind using {rp} as long as the article is consistent. I am not sure it existed when I added quite a few references in 2008. There was only one Wilson at that stage I believe.

Preferably the references can have wikicode names rather than numbers, but this may be a limitation of VisualEditor.

Side note: the Hughes citations #69-#75 are broken. Commander Keane (talk) 13:36, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. I know when you put this content on there was only one book by Wilson, as I went through the history. I take from what you've said you are happy but would like to see this changed on the other instances too. I seem to be unable to do anything but manual reverts on my device with my permissions. It took me ages :) I will think about whether to do this throughout the page. Thanks again. LateFatherKarma (talk) 13:52, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

Visual Editor (which has had bugs for years) always makes ref names like name=":0", name=":1" etc. - I don't think they can be customised unless you go to source editor. Hand-crafted ref names can be almost anything you like, within reason - see WP:NAMEDREFS.

The Hughes refs are only "broken" inasmuch as they lack the titles of the articles concerned. If anybody has those issues of Rail Magazine (nos. 228, 240, 243, 253, 257, 260 and 262), it would be good if they can add the article titles, also the magazine cover dates. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:23, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

I suspect what @LateFatherKarma is trying to ask, and even if they aren’t I’ll ask it, is whether the community would be happy to change from short footnote style citations to using the {{r}} and {{rp}} templates? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 08:11, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

No. They divorce the page numbers from the rest of the reference.

I would also like to place on record, before I begin the serious work, that I intend to review recent edits such as this one, where a reference to a book by Jeremy Wilson (and another) was replaced by one by Keith Wilson (and another). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:13, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

OK, but short footnotes similarly divorce the citation itself from the full reference - it's a case of one or the other, not really (in my view) one being better than the other Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:16, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

If you use {{sfn}}, they don't. See e.g. NBR 224 and 420 Classes where every single short ref gives author(s), year and page, and all of them link to the related full ref. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:47, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

My point is though that the entry in the references table is still a (and it’s in the name) shortened citation, rather than the full reference - so it’s similarly “divorced” from the full ref, which requires multiple clicks to find. It’s the same as R and RP, where the full reference is cited, and the page number is next to the citation.

In my opinion, the latter makes more sense - the book is the source, and each citation says that it’s using that source, and this particular piece of information is on page X… it cuts down on the size of the References section by only having a single entry for each literary work, with each individual citation individually citing a specific page. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 08:25, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi, the edit Redrose64 referred to in their message, was done by me, by mistake, due to the lack of clarity over two books being referenced by the same author. The following day I manually reverted them. If he viewed the edit history, he knew I had reverted that. I didn't want anyone making the same mistake, so later revisited and clarified with the Rp template. I think Wikipedia is a place to try and be courteous to each other and providing a link to a mistake I subsequently manually reverted doesn't seem very courteous. I would appreciate knowing if anyone else has an opinion on this matter, as we appear to have three people that are fine with it changing and one who is saying no and continuing to make changes when no consensus has been made?LateFatherKarma (talk) 16:57, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

I would remind you to assume good faith - Redrose is making edits to the status quo; those of us that would like to see it changed must get consensus before changing it. Redrose doesn’t need consensus to edit according to the previous consensus. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:14, 4 August 2025 (UTC)

To explain, as soon as I added the Rp template and completed these changes I experienced harassment from an individual outside of the Wikipedia site. Following morning it had been reverted and correspondence commenced that I feel doesn't have the nicest tone. Assuming good faith, I will believe these issues are unrelated, but perhaps that's influenced how I feel. Outside of Wikipedia, my main use of citations has been academic and I guess I'm drawing on the fact that a reference without book title or repeated five times throughout references and sources, would not have been acceptable but realise Wikipedia may be different.LateFatherKarma (talk) 07:19, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

You used the phrase "repeated five times throughout references and sources" here, and something similar in earlier posts; which reference is this? You may draw your examples from any of the versions of 07:06, 23 July 2025, 23:16, 1 August 2025 or 21:39, 4 August 2025. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

References:

Wilson & Spick (1994) pp. 14-21

Wilson, Jeremy; Spick, Jerome (1994) etc

Wilson & Spick (1994) p.38

Wilson & Spick (1994) pp. 44

Sources:

Wilson, Jeremy; Spick, Jerome (1994) etc

They are the same source.

LateFatherKarma (talk) 20:51, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Channel_Tunnel&oldid=1303749180

This had one, before the revert you made. LateFatherKarma (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

They are the same source, but they are different references; there is no repetition. This is a legitimate case of shortened footnotes, a method that is explicitly recognised as valid, see WP:CITESHORT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:42, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

Would the full use of {{sfn}} alleviate the issue of citations without book titles? It takes two hovers to see the reference title on desktop and is crap on mobile, but you do get to see the extent of usage of particular sources in the citations list. It seems currently the article uses a combination of a reference list and individual citations and consistent approach as used in the recent Featured articles I have seen would be good. Commander Keane (talk) 05:13, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

It’s the reasons you just described that I’d be in favour of switching to R and RP personally… Danners430 _{tweaks made} 05:46, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

There are a number of existing instances of {{sfn}}, I would be happy to use that method in place of the existing untemplated short refs. I don't see mobile non-hovering as a good reason to change the referencing style. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:42, 6 August 2025 (UTC)

From more of a typical user point of view, given a lack of experience editing, I saw something that lacked clarity, so made changes which were a mistake, before finding what I felt was a good solution and making further changes. Due to this lack of experience, I felt this being reverted seemed unhelpful. I understand better now. Yesterday I had two cars try to drive me off the road, almost crashing so putting that in perspective, I do not wish to get into a content dispute. Anything not great on mobile devices, doesn't seem ideal. If something is decided that the more experienced people feel would avoid this and that provides more clarity and anyone would like help with making any changes, let me know.LateFatherKarma (talk) 07:32, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I thinking going with {{sfn}} is fine and Redrose64 said they may work on it so that's great. Or LateFatherKarma may want to give it a try?

Is it a conversion for every citation or just the books?

If a system has a poor software implementation we shouldn't avoid it, but get it fixed. It is two hovers on desktop (I assume one would be better) and it is not simply a hovering issue on mobile but you can't see the details of the book and ever return to the inline citation you clicked. You are stuck down in the references section.

I would imagine adding a pp= parameter to <ref> would solve this, or perhaps someone has suggested a solution and there is a Phabricator task? It may get implemented in the next billion dollars the Wikimedia Foundation spends (apologies for the sarcasm). Commander Keane (talk) 09:17, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

There is a technical solution under development as we speak actually - which would solve this issue. In the mean time, personally I think using the RP template is a good compromise - because the citation is the full reference, and the page number used by that specific inline cite is next to the cite itself. Only a single click, and works on mobile. And if you're reusing the same source material multiple times... does the page number really need to be in the references section, or is it enough for it to be next to the citation? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:05, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the link :-). Ages ago I thought it was curious that WMDE chose to work on inline citations and I thought it was a central Wikidata-style repository of sources that you could sub-reference. I didn't realise the current system was so broken under the hood.

As one is reading along I agree it is not that important to have the list of page numbers at the bottom.

However, when you review the sourcing by looking at the references section it is very handy see how much particular sources are used. For example if an article uses a 1983 book fifteen times versus a 2022 book once, or vice versa. Or if you have the book in your hands and want to check each citation used from it. I don't think you can even ctrl-F with {{rp}} to find usage of a particular source.

I wonder if once the code is deployed {{sfn}} could be reconfigured to use the new system without editing the article, or easier for a bot to do a conversion? In that case we should use it now. I imagine it may be more difficult with the {{rp}} method. Commander Keane (talk) 12:49, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Well, using RP you still see how often a particular source is used because the reference at the bottom will have links to each of the citations where it is used. For the sake of example:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

References

You can see how often the reference “Foo” is used because it has the three links next to it Danners430 _{tweaks made} 13:37, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Good point. Commander Keane (talk) 18:20, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

I found that the various Flyvbjerg references were inconsistent in format, with the full {{cite book}} being used twice - with the author names being mixed up in one of them. Seeking consistency, I decided to convert all of them to use {{sfn}} as a demonstration. This has reduced the byte count by 136, and also reduced the ref count from 229 to 228. The latter is because of {{sfn}}'s built-in duplication detection, refs 18 and 160 were merged as a single ref, no. 18. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:33, 8 August 2025 (UTC)

Hi, looked at the example and I think that is an improvement. Personally, I think I would prefer the Rp but I'm bias given my mistake and the faff after it :) LateFatherKarma (talk) 18:13, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Navette Camions Eurotunnel.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 02:21, 11 November 2025 (UTC)

Chunnel

I reversed (the second) edit by ~2026-18690-58 to remove "Chunnel" from the lead. I accidentally hit enter so my edit summary got cut off, thus I am posting here. Removal of Chunnel seems to be a perennial problem, so no harm is discussing it. I do understand the idea of the edit, but the issue can be confusing for outsiders.

~2026-18690-58's edit summary was Removed an incorrect statement which claimed that the Channel Tunnel is sometimes referred to as the "Chunnel". If you Google Search, you may find very occasional, very old media articles which used the term in failed attempts to coin a popular phrase. It is currently used neither in conversation, by media nor by train services etc. I think there is some confusion here, the bold bit in the first sentence isn't the official name, it is a possible name reflected in sources (including historical ones) so that readers know they are at the correct article.

Occasional is a synonym for sometimes, you can see Chunnel used numerous times in sources used in the article and a quick check at The Wikipedia Library yielded this 2025 article: "Eurostar/Virgin: smashing the Chunnel monopoly". Week (UK Edition) (1565): 41–41. 2025-11-08. Using Google search results for article content is original research and can lead the problems, the term is in use currently, and more importantly has been in use historically - so it needs to be mentioned.

I personally do think that Wikipedia lead sentences are way too long and having (French: Tunnel sous la Manche, sometimes referred to as the Chunnel) is a distraction, and I would be probably be happy with a mention of alternative names in the body of the article. However, that is the style that has been globally adopted in Wikipedia. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#First_sentence is the relevant guide. It may be possible for someone to place the term in the body of the article, with some sources. Commander Keane (talk) 00:17, 31 March 2026 (UTC)