Template:COinS safe
 | This template is safe for use in citation templates that produce COinS metadata; see Wikipedia:COinS. If HTML or other markup is added, then the template must be reevaluated. |
Usage
[edit source]This template is a notice for templates that may be used in citation templates. By default, it indicates the template is safe for use as shown above.
To indicate a template that should not be used in a citation template:
{{COinS safe|n}}
 | This template should not be used in citation templates such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, because it includes markup that will pollute the COinS metadata they produce; see Wikipedia:COinS. |
Issue
[edit source]Citation templates such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2 generate COinS metadata. If a template is used in a citation template field, then it may inject HTML into the metadata.
Compare the rendered HTML for {{cite book}} with |author= using no template and using {{smallcaps}}.
| Markup | Renders as |
|---|---|
{{cite book |author=Sam Drucker |title=Title}}
|
Sam Drucker. Title.
|
{{cite book |author={{smallcaps|Sam Drucker}} |title=Title}}
|
Sam Drucker. Title.
|
The author metadata is in the rft.aulast field. In this case, it is percent-encoded and is rendered as <span class="smallcaps" style="font-variant:small-caps;">Sam Drucker</span>
Reference management software will interpret the entire span as the author name.