Template talk:Hadith USC

Alternative Needed

USC has removed many hadith which contain references to violence. An alternative should be found to usc--Misconceptions2 (talk) 11:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The whole project collapsed and the site is gone. We can get a few of these back via Archive.org, but yeah, it does need replacing with something.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:48, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Bukhari Error

Wait, why does {{Hadith-usc|bukhari|76|1|422}} produce Sahih al-Bukhari, 8:76:430 rather than 8:76:430 as Abudawud, Muslim, and Muwatta do? --tronvillain (talk) 17:36, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Huh? The numbers in your examples don't match.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:47, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Dead links

As of January 2019, this template appears to create dead links, as the site being linked to returns 404 errors. Beorhtwulf (talk) 13:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

It's time to modify the defunct USC website with a functional website

According to Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement at USC, "CMJE was made possible by funding through the Righteous Persons Foundation. The Center closed in January 2012.", "The main vehicle CMJE used to promote itself and reach its audience was its website, now defunct, which, at its height, received more than 400,000 hits a month due to the unveiling and expansion of its religious text resources, a new project that has come to be called the Compendium of Muslim and Jewish Religious Texts." CMJE closed in Jan. 2012, and unless someone can find information otherwise, it seems that USC has no official plan to bring the Compendium of Muslim and Jewish Religious Texts back online.

There is an alternative. The internet archive seems to have a complete archive at https://web.archive.org/web/20170607101947/http://cmje.usc.edu/religious-texts/hadith/. I've done some random checks such as Translation of Sahih Bukhari, Book 59: Military Expeditions led by the Prophet (pbuh) (Al-Maghaazi) . The template can be modified to use it as the source. It doesn't go down to the verse level, only book level, but it's better than the current dead links. --Happyseeu (talk) 19:35, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Hi Happyseeu, suggest we immediately implement your suggestion of modifying the template pointing to archive.org with "*" as the timestamp. Sandbox update and example testcase: Sahih al-Bukhari, Bukhari 8:76:430. This is easy to do and there is nothing to loose only gain. It is not an ideal solution though as you see it goes to the index page because of the "*". The right way would be to find individual archives possibly at multiple archive providers each with unique timestamps. They would either replace the template entirely, or make a new template argument somehow. This is bot work which I have capabilities but for now lets try your proposal is quickest and easiest. -- GreenC 06:28, 26 March 2019 (UTC)

No response, I will go ahead. On more thought, will use a timestamp of 1970 which triggers the Wayback API to find the oldest working snapshot (usually but not always). Which is a little better than the index page with "*". Someone should still go through these (only about 250) and check for missing archive URLs and change the URL to bare link with a |dead link=. Even better, deprecate the template entirely and replace with {{webarchive}}. -- GreenC 00:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

@GreenC: Looks good to me. Thanks for your response. --Happyseeu (talk) 05:41, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

I was also fixing this at {{Quote Quran translation}} (plus fixing other markup issues), and have done so more robustly than a hard-coded URL (you can replace the string of digits in the archive-url with one that works, and I've also added that feature here, though I don't object to the * approach). I'm also upgrading some other templates in this series, like {{Quote hadith}}, and {{Quote Quran range}}. However, this Archive.org trick is only a partial fix, especially for this template. I find that the URLs for |abudawud, |muslim and |muwatta , used in the documentation itself, do not work, even with the * URLs. The |bukhari ones do work, but even that may be partial coverage. So, some other site needs to be found.

{{Hadith USC}} appears to have another serious issue, which is using direct URLs inline, against WP:EL. This should only be done if this template is only for use inside citations. If it's meant for use inline in article text, it needs to generate proper citations; see {{Quote Quran translation}} for implementation. If it's intended for both kinds of use, then it needs a parameter switch for different output, and to be properly documented. It needs to be properly documented about intended/appropriate usage, anyway, not just all the parameter geekery. :-)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:45, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: It's only about 250. Since the site is dead anyway, why do we have this template? It will never be used again, and is a legacy complication. Someone just needs convert them CS1|2 or square-bracket links. Once done I can run an archive bot and it will search 20+ archive providers and add the correct archive URL (if one exists or a {{dead link}}). That is the problem with 1000s of EL templates, when the site dies they can't get resolved by archive bots. -- GreenC 13:26, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

A proactive approach might be having a bot test URLs, and submit all the working ones to web.archive.org so that they are archived; then manually updating citation templates to support archive URLs where they do not already. (Gods help us if archive.org ever goes under.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:29, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: There are no working URLs, the website is dead.-- GreenC 23:50, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't mean this site in particular, I mean with regard to all the "1000s of EL templates". That is, we need to take action now to prevent what happened to this template and source happening to others.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:53, 3 April 2019 (UTC)

Oh, yes agreed! According to WP:Link rot there is an automated system run by Internet Archive that monitors new URLs and archives them real-time as added, but if it works for templated links and old cases don't know (I suspect not). -- GreenC 02:32, 4 April 2019 (UTC)