Template:Citation Style documentation/registration

Citations 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.

Four access levels can be used:

• free: the source is free to read for anyone (this applies in particular to articles in open access)
• 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 level of url-holding parameters

Sources linked by |url=, |chapter-url=, |entry-url=, |article-url=, and |section-url= 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
|url=	|url-access=	registration limited subscription
|article-url=	|article-url-access=
|chapter-url=	|chapter-url-access=
|contribution-url=	|chapter-url-access=Template:Dagger
|entry-url=	|entry-url-access=
|section-url=	|section-url-access=

Template:Dagger|contribution-url-access= not currently defined; use its alias |chapter-url-access=

Access level of 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

url	access	allowed keywords
|url=	|url-access=	free
|bibcode=	|bibcode-access=
|doi=	|doi-access=
|hdl=	|hdl-access=Template:Dagger
|jstor=	|jstor-access=
|ol=	|ol-access=
|osti=	|osti-access=

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:

• |arxiv=
• |biorxiv=
• |citeseerx=
• |pmc=
• |rfc=
• |ssrn=

Ambiguous access parameters

The parameters |registration=yes and |subscription=yes can also be used to indicate the access level of a citation. However, they do not indicate which link they apply to, so editors are encouraged to use |url-access=registration and |url-access=subscription instead, when the restriction applies to |url=. If the restriction applies to an identifier, these parameters should be omitted.

These parameters add a link note to the end of the citation:

• registration: (deprecated) For online sources that require registration, set |registration=yes (or y, or true); yields to subscription if both are set.
• subscription: (deprecated) For online sources that require a subscription, set |subscription=yes (or y, or true); supersedes registration if both are set.

Setting |registration= or |subscription= to any value other than y, yes, or true will generate an error message.