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 restrictions on access to material provided via the external links included in a citation. These levels describe requirements or constraints related to accessing and viewing the cited material; they are not intended to indicate the ability to reuse, or the copyright status, of the material, since that status is not relevant to verifying claims in articles.

Four access levels can be used:

• access indicator for named identifiers:
  • Freely accessible free: the source is free to read for anyone (from the viewpoint of the provider of the source – could still be blocked by client-side filtering or safeguarding, or distributor-based geoblocking)
• access indicators for url-holding parameters:
  • Free registration required registration: a free registration with the provider of the source is required to access the source, even if a limited preview, abstract or review may still be available without registration
  • Free access subject to limited trial, subscription normally required limited: there are other constraints (such as a cap on daily views, a restriction to certain day or night times, or providing the contents only to certain IP ranges/locales on behalf of the provider of the source) to freely access this source as a whole
  • Paid subscription required subscription: the source as a whole is only accessible via a paid subscription with the provider of the source ("paywall"), even if a limited preview, abstract or review may still be available without subscription

As there are often multiple external links with different access levels in the same citation, each value is attributed to a specific external link.