Help talk:Footnotes/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Formatting

Having used footnotes in this form for the first time today, I think I'd prefer large ref numbers. If we aim to massively increase the number of references then a numbering system which - as this does - ruins the leading in the text is not ideal. Although the ref numbers that are the same size as the rest of the text is unorthodox I think it looks very neat on the screen. --bodnotbod 17:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Issues

Revert-warring

There has been some revert-warring on the help page (17 May 2006), a report of that has been moved to Help talk:How to use Cite.php references#Chronology --Francis Schonken 09:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Fate of Help:How to use Cite.php references

Decision process (aka vote) currently going on at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Help:How to use Cite.php references --Francis Schonken 09:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Previous content of Help:Footnotes

was moved to Template:Ph:Footnotes [1]

I propose to move that content (and edit history) that was moved to template: namespace, back to help: namespace, for instance to help:Footnotes by templates. --Francis Schonken 09:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

The bigger picture: use of "H:", "Phh", "Ph" and other related templates in Help namespace

The way I see it the using "H:", "Phh", "Ph" (and other templates) for managing Help: namespace pages has some advantages for those help: pages that are not well maintained, i.e. have no people attending them (on their watchlist etc.) - in that case people like Omniplex can maintain quite a lot of them without much of an effort.

Disadvantages include:

• Usually crappy layout;
• I second the idea that "help:" namespace pages give practical help for the ordinary non-technically-experienced user/editor, and so are primary a tool for enhancing wikipedia's usability. While the H:/Phh/Ph/... system relies on copying content from meta - which can be user-friendly, but as easily can be very technical - the H:/Phh/Ph/... system can be a usability setback.
• The H:/Phh/Ph/... system is not very supportive of non-technical users writing easy-to-understand help descriptions, so often gets in a loop of not being helpful.
• The H:/Phh/Ph/... system can have problems in indicating en:wikipedia-specific policy/guidelines. Usually that happens in the Ph template, but then you can get contradictions between the help displayed in the first sections of the help page and the nth section of that same help: page that gives a different instruction (at least, again, confusing the user).
• The desirability & content of the {{Phh:Reader}} template (to which most of the Phh templates redirect) completely elude me.
• ...

Placing the help:footnotes page in this bigger picture:

• There are people volunteering to do the maintenance on this help page (see http://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Template:Ph:Footnotes&action=history - contains "maintainance" history of this page prior to it being moved to template namespace); no need to use the "fall-back" scenario of the H:/Phh/Ph/... system.
• Note that implementing the H:/Phh/Ph/... system on this page, has repeatedly erased the interwiki-link to nl:help:voetnoot, a page for which I accidently do some maintenance too.[2] --Francis Schonken 09:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I don't understand or agree with some of your arguments, such as meta pages being a "fall-back" for Wikipedia pages. I completely agree about {{Phh:Reader}}. For some reason blank templates seem unacceptable! The page it links to Help:Help also seems to somewhat duplicate Help:Contents. Just because it exists on meta doesn't mean it needs to exist here!

I think many of these meta pages come from Wikipedia originally, though many are too technical or verbose. If we were to drop the meta pages (like Wikibooks), we would need at least some recreated as Wikipedia pages. To achieve this, it would be logical to refine the meta pages. It would be even more logical to improve the meta pages, so they benefit all projects using them. Ultimately, rather than cutting and pasting, it would be better to transclude the pages, so they perform in much the same way as images from Commons (I know this would increase server load - but ultimately it is the right thing to do).

Btw. interwiki links can be placed on the Ph template with <includeonly> tags (so they don't show up on the Ph template). See Template:Ph:Edit summary. This means they don't need to be protected in the Help: page. -- Gareth Aus 00:59, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Mbeychok's issue

I received an e-mail from Mbeychok, with following content

Francis:

I left the following message on your user Talk page almost two days ago, but have not had a response ... so I thought I would send it via this Wiki email.

Regards, User:Mbeychok

== Cite.php in Meta version is not the same as in Wikipedia version ==

Francis, I don't want to get between you and User:Omniplex. However, there is a problem:

• Where my simplified writeup on how to use Cite.php was incorporated into Help:Footnotes it works very nicely.

• But, where it was incorporated into m:help:footnotes it does not work because the Meta version of Cite.php still uses a vertical arrow instead of a caret ... and it uses 1.1, 1.2. 1.3, etc. instead of a, b, c, etc. for multiple use of the same references.

That difference really should be resolved somehow.- User:Mbeychok

This seems an issue to be resolved at meta to me, probably m:cite.php --Francis Schonken 10:04, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

What next?

"If" (but I don't want to run ahead of the vote result) Help:How to use Cite.php references stays, and "if" the Help on footnotes-by-templates is moved to help: namespace again, I'd propose to keep this a user-friendly help page, by making two main section headers, one for an *inclusion* of the content of Help:How to use Cite.php references, one for an *inclusion* of the content of the old footnotes-by-templates help. --Francis Schonken 09:35, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

1. The vote resulted in "redirect", that's what I tried first. Good result, because we obviously agree that its former content is better than most of the former content here. Back from 4 to 3 pages.
2. The next step should be to get the wanted content on the master help page, back from 3 to 2 pages. Details TBD, at the moment the difference is the missing cite.php "synopsis". That's helpful for those who have already used it and only forgot the precise "ref"-syntax.
3. Independent point, if you want Template:Ph:Footnotes as Help:Footnotes/3 move it, the inclusion will still work over a single redirect. I don't see the point, the edit history is preserved as is, but in theory it's possible, and "footnotes/3" as pagename makes sense.
4. The minor technical difference between cite here an on Meta is interesting, I'm too lazy to check Special:Version which site forgot to install the most recent version. It could be also a configuration issue. Actually I don't care, cite doesn't work with my browser at the moment, mediazilla:5567.
5. Help master page system: Clumsy, but I've no better idea. Until January something styling itself as "Uncle G's bot" did the copy and paste. Doing it manually is odd, but better than different help pages on different projects for the same technical topic. The Ph-add-on is sometimes useful, Phh rarely. Meta has only Ph.
6. Interlanguage links for help pages are maintained on Meta, click +/- at the bottom of m:Help:Footnotes and add your language, ready. Just edit the master page and copy it back. Or anything with that effect. -- Omniplex 03:26, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, did you have a problem with the present content of help:footnotes? I mean, I see a lot of innuendos in your comments above (for example, your assertion that interwiki-links are *also* handled at meta, which is no argument pro nor contra to have interwiki-links in help:footnotes at en:wikipedia) - but I didn't see *arguments*. Also the fact that Uncle G apparently has left en:wikipedia is an innuendo for which I don't see what basis it gives regarding a decision on the content of help:footnotes - maybe his bot operations were incompatible with what the en:wikipedia community wants, and maybe that was the reason why he left (I don't know, I'm only saying that Uncle G's departure is used as an innuendo without value in the present context). --Francis Schonken 09:27, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

The new content was fine, therefore I copied it to the master page, and copied that back here. The only missing piece from the old content was or is the "synopsis" for a quick overview of the syntax. Anything else was 1:1 not touching a single comma in it.

I can't tell you how the help system as is was developed, I found out how it works, but don't know the complete history, maybe ask Patrick. Some details are obvious: One master copy with project-specific add-on templates is in theory a good idea. The few folks caring about these pages from different projects can join their forces this way. In practice it has some drawbacks, copy+paste isn't very elegant, as you've stated it destroys interlanguage links again and again. At the moment, we could improve it by managing such links on Meta.

In fact there is already a system on Meta, look at m:Template:H-langs:Footnotes (no translations) vs. m:Template:H-langs:Link (many translations). But this system is based on Meta's concept of "Help language = help namespace", with copy+paste we'll never get these H-langs templates here. But they are on Meta, good enough as far as I'm concerned. For a different example see the language links for m:ParserFunctions (again a template, only its name doesn't start with "H-langs:"), you can add links to any page in any language, the only restriction is one link per language.

So far the technical conditions (and differences between multilingual m: vs. monolingual w:en:) are obvious. For the political / historical reasons why the help system is as it is I've no idea, you're around here for some time, probably you know more about it. It's clumsy but simple. In doubt I like clumsy and simple better than elegant and complex. -- Omniplex 10:40, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: Actually several links per language work in a H-langs-style template, but if they are displayed as say French French French that would be confusing.

Meeting 7/10

OK - I am going to call Jess and a couple of other recuriters and get some more info and also try and get a couple clients We are both going to work on the website Lets try and meet next week —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bbruckner (talk • contribs) 04:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC).

Templates

{{refs}}

Since so many people (like me) forget the div class=references, I've added a quick and dirty template, {{refs}} to do it. Example at Oregon wine. --EngineerScotty 00:32, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"citation needed"

Should also include template to indicate "citation needed", namely {{Fact|date=February 2007}}, in article.
—DIV (128.250.204.118 10:50, 17 July 2007 (UTC))

Full details nolonger need be in 1st occurance of named ref

As reported on Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-11-13/Technology report:David Ruben ^Talk 03:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

• When using named <ref> tags, the one containing the contents of the reference no longer needs to be first (bug 5885). This may help alleviate complaints that lengthy references clutter articles' wikitext and make it difficult to read. Patch is thanks to Phil Boswell, committed by Andrew Garrett in r17382.

So lets try this out:

: For 1st named empty ref<ref name="test"/>, we later fully define.<ref name="test">Full details</ref>
<references/>

Gives:

For 1st named empty ref, later fully defined.

Yup this works :-) I would point out that previous discussion held re trying to define all references in a separate hidden section, will presumeably leave each footnote having an additional link back to the hidden section. David Ruben ^Talk 03:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Template based implementation examples

Comments on template based implementation examples to overcome difficulties with editing due to our non-see-what-you-get editing interface led me to add:

• See Category:Specific source templates for some template based implementation examples.

to "See also". —Preceding unsigned comment added by WAS 4.250 (talk • contribs) 18:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

order of citations

With the <ref name="Perry">Perry's Handbook, Sixth Edition, McGraw-Hill Co., 1984.</ref> example, does it have to be the first? Will it work if it is the 2nd and <ref name="Perry"/> is the first instance in the article? Kingturtle (talk) 19:57, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes - see 2 sections up Help_talk:Footnotes#Full details nolonger need be in 1st occurance of named ref David Ruben ^Talk 11:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

This is helpful so citations don't burden the infobox or lead. The full citation can be later, although it can make it difficult to locate if the full citation needs to be edited. Gimmetrow 23:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Troubleshooting

I have a list of errors and their resolution listed at User:Gadget850/Ref errors. Should this be incorporated here? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 19:11, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Section: Creating the list of References or Footnotes

Comment of "At the point where you want the text of the footnotes or references to appear (usually at the end of the article in a Notes or References section), insert the tag:"

should be restate to "(must be at the end of the article in a Notes or References section, but before external link, category(s) and interlanguage link sectios.) because if the description with reference such as [1] is exist after section of footnote (reference), that reference is not shown. See my edit of Revision as of 17:02, October 23, 2008 (edit) (undo)Namazu-tron added description with reference, total three reference. The previous edition to mine had two references, but only one reference is shown and second one [2] ( in a very last sentense of "The standard author abbreviation E.H.Wilson is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.[1] ") was had hidden reference due to it was after "section reference /". See my hidden comment in the article: <!--　put "==References == & <references/>" lines at bottom to effect all referenceces. --> --Namazu-tron (talk) 11:41, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes with page numbers

This idea was raised a couple of years ago, I think, but has anyone thought of doing anything about the old page number problem? Right now I still come across articles that essentially cite the same reference over and over again, but each time with a different page number. I could easily go in and simplify things, but then all of the page number information would be lost, which some may consider a pity. Might there be a way for page numbers to be accommodated in each block of footnote code, even if they stay hidden like comments? Something like this:

• <ref name="EfD" page="35">Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.</ref>
• <ref name="EfD" page="iii"/>
• <ref name="EfD" page="72"/>

Each footnote blocks would still point to the same reference at the bottom of the page. The readers would see nothing, but it would certainly help the editors. With just a little more effort, though, I can even imagine that it would be possible to display each page number with a mouseover of the individual footnote, but I don't see that as nearly so important. Cheers, --Jwinius (talk) 20:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

The only current ways to include unique page numbers for each cite are to:

• Repeat each reference with a unique page number
• Use {{rp}} for an inline page number
• Or, use Wikipedia:Citing sources#shortened footnotes; see Learned Hand# Notes

--—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 21:27, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Option 1: Exactly what I am looking to avoid. Option 2: Ugly, but I suppose it's better than option 1. Thanks. Option 3: There goes your named footnotes option; bah. Example, Learned Hand#Notes: OMG!!

How come nobody wants to consider expanding the functionality of the "ref" tag? --Jwinius (talk) 21:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Where would you put the page numbers? It has to be either inline or in the references. BTW: just as you don't like shortened footnotes, other editors do not like {{rp}}. It is just one more hack on top of another. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 13:54, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

In my example, I put the page numbers within the ref tag, e.g. "<ref name="EfD" page="iii"/>" or "<ref name="EfD" page="253"/>" -- something that is not possible at the moment (it leads to an error). I don't really even care if the page information stored in this manner is only available to people who are busy editing. --Jwinius (talk) 14:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That part I figured. I mean where would you display the page numbers? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 14:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

If we were to decide to display them (and I'm not sure we'd even want to), then I was thinking right over the reference link in the text (Want to know the name of the publication too? Click on the link). Only displaying the page number during a mouseover down in the references section would be of no use, since in that case the context would be lost. Of course, you could also go a step further and include the entire reference in the mouseover (publication + page number), but that would be kind of radical and I'm not sure everybody would be happy with that. --Jwinius (talk) 15:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles going to FAC will get hit hard if the references don't have page numbers. so they are effectively mandatory. I don't know if mouseovers have ever been discussed, but every proposal I have seen for scrolling or hidden reference sections has failed. See Wikipedia:Citing sources#Avoid scrolling lists and the linked discussion. I'm not saying that it is not feasible or desirable, just that you would need to make a compelling argument. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:57, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

So, if you know that many other editors don't like {{rp}} and you still want to go for FA, you're basically forced to apply option 1 or 2 -- that sucks! I can see now why hidden page numbers would be considered a step backwards. I liked the mouseover solution, but I suspect that it would be criticized for its lack of any immediately apparent connection between the pop-up page number and the publication listed below that is associated with the reference link. At best I think it will be viewed as being only slightly better than the {{rp}} solution, but therefore not worth the effort to implement. Then again, I may be wrong.
All I can think of now is the more radical solution where the page number would pop-up on a mouseover along with the entire reference, so that the tags I mentioned in my first example would produce:

• Page 25 of: Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.
• Page iii of: Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.
• Page 72 of: Excel For Dummies, First Edition, Hungry Minds, Inc., 1980.

The reference links themselves would still lead down to a Notes/References section below with an entry for the publication without any page numbers displayed (although now I think it might be considered useful anyway if at this location the page numbers by themselves could be displayed during mouseover events of the "^" links). You would probably also want to make it so that if the ref tag contained no page variable, there would be no pop-up on a mouseover either. What do you think; any chance of success? To me this seems like a better solution than options 1 or 2. --Jwinius (talk) 01:41, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The more I think of this pop-up solution and its two variations (one with only the page number, the other with the entire reference as well), the more I like it. Either of them would certainly be an improvement on the current state of affairs. Where do we go to make this proposal? --Jwinius (talk) 00:32, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

See T15127 - Page number attribute for ref tags. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Ref names (with quotes)

Recently I put some "Pet Peeves" mini-essays on my user page, and identified this article as one that I have a peeve about. You can read my peeve here. I would like to change the examples in this article, and add some of the things mentioned (not the whole peeve, just the relevant points). Any comments or objections before I proceed? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 12:00, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

ref syntax should be improved

At the moment there is no possibility to know, if a ref element is attached to a sentence or a set of sentences, e.g.

This is sentence 1. This is sentence 2.[ref]Smith (2008), p. 7.[/ref]

Instead, the following syntax should be possible:

This is sentence 1. [ref "Smith (2008), p. 7."]This is sentence 2[/ref]

Here, it is obvious, that sentence 1 cannot be found in the book by Smith. That would allow a more precise knowledge about the origin of parts of an article. Additionally, this would allow mouse-over effects that let pop up a small box with the source. I posted this idea already to the programmers, without any reaction that someone is improving this. 92.229.63.236 (talk) 11:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Ref help

I'm not sure whether you're supposed to edit these pages directly (or whether to do it on mediawiki.org), so I'll just comment: the "list-defined references" section uses a bad example, with the references named "reference1", "reference2" etc. It would be more illuminating to use realistic examples, named after authors or websites or some such. Enumerating them like that makes it look like you have to keep the numbering of the reference names in sync with their display or something. Stevage 01:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Grouped footnotes

I was surprised grouped footnotes were not covered, so I added a section. Also mentioned closing the lists at various points. I'm sure it can be improved upon. kwami (talk) 23:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It is documented at Wikipedia:Footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Bot to do work?

Dumb question: is there a bot available that can redo the references in an article to use the list-defined reference method? Tabercil (talk) 15:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like this, and I nominate Warty dyskeratoma as a test case for the bot. It's just a stub, but it's about 50% ref text, which makes finding and correcting even the simplest typos a challenge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Multiple citations of the same reference or footnote

I have an issue (!!) regarding "Multiple citations of the same reference or footnote" (see WP:NAMEDREFS). The implicit recommendation is that "duplicate" citations of a refernce should be merged into a single reference – which WP:AWB enforces. (The reference then has the familiar "^^{a b c}" links back to the different citations.)

I prefer to separate "notes" from "references", and to use Harvard style of referencing. This often leads to references duplicate in content (e.g.: "Smith & Jones 2003"), which AWB automatically combines. Which I do not want combined! (For various reasons, and partly for style. Do I need to explain these?)

The wording is: "To cite the same reference or footnote several times...." Which I read as enabling, not restrictive, and not policy. Or is it? Any comments? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:06, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand this question. Are you perhaps doing non-Harvard short citations? Proper Harvard citations don't use any ref tags at all, and AWB shouldn't be touching them. Here's the difference:

• Harvard: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (Smith 2008:12, Wikipedia 2009).
• NOT Harvard: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.<ref>Smith 2008:12, Wikipedia 2009</ref>

You might like to look at WP:CITESHORT if you're working with the second option. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I just started drafting a comparison of reference and citation styles. I find that parenthetical/Harvard and shortened footnotes are often confused. To add to the confusion, several of the templates that are named starting with "Harv" do not result in parenthetical output. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:48, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

My apologies for overlooking this for so many months (yikes), and also for not being clearer. The issue I have is where AWB automatically merges any "references" where it finds duplicate instances of <ref> .. </ref> (containing identical content), leading to the familiar "^^{a b c}" links, and replacing the original refs with named refs. Is there anyway to prevent this? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

I believe this has been removed from the latest version. See the AWB talk page. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:09, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't see that discussion. Thanks, and I'll check there. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:56, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

ProveIt

I'd like to inform people of our new ProveIt reference management tool, developed by the ELC lab at Georgia Tech. It's designed to provide a convenient GUI for viewing, adding, and modifying footnote references. Superm401 - Talk 19:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Question on implimenting multiple citations of the same group

I want to have a reference linked to through the group "note" be able to be used in multiple places as it is nessasary info that may confuse the reader and I don't have to have multiple notations say the same thing. I'm not sure how to do this.

Essentially I want:

Bob is good at sports.[note n]

Bob likes to play sports.[note n]

where "note n" leads to the same notation.陣内_Jinnai 22:48, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about "group" note (there is a possible complication here), but possibly you just want to do a very simple citing of a source more than once (i.e., in more than one footnote). Right?

Many editors use a "named ref", which is a way of making a footnote show up in more than one place. That has some very serious deficiencies, so I would suggest this:

1. List all of your sources (using the {{citation}} or {{cite xxx}} templates) in one section (e.g., "References") at the end of the article.
2. In your text, or the footnotes (in the <ref> ... </ref> tags), wherever you want to cite a source, use what are called "Harv templates", something like "{{Harvnb|Smith|1987|p=113}}". They will all "magically" link to your bibliographic reference.

Does that help? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:41, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't work when you want to seperate out footnotes from references. What I am using is <ref group=X></ref>, or in the case of citations within ciations I have to use {{#tag:ref|text goes here|group=x}}.陣内_Jinnai 01:43, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

See WP:REFGROUP and WP:REFNEST. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:11, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

(Sorry for the tardy response.) Separating footnotes from the bibliographic references is exactly what I showed above (and what I always do). The trick is to not put your {{citation}} templates in the footnotes (between <ref> ... </ref> tags), but organized as a list wherever you find convenient. The link(s) to the proper citation is made by the {{Harv}} template, which can be placed in the text or a footnote. And in multiple places, which I think is what you want. Take a look at Tacoma Fault, which shows this kind of separation.

The complication here is that you are using "group" (why?), which seems unnecessary. Also, I simply do not understand why a "citation" should contain a citation; to mind mind that is absurd. But perhaps we are not talking about quite the same thing here; could you provide an example? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:37, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Those are shortened footnotes— see WP:CITESHORT. As noted at WP:REFNEST, explanatory notes may be created with the Footnotes system and they sometimes need a reference. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what you mentioned before. (This starts sliding from how to why. I suspect that Jinnai is sophisticated enough to not be confused by this digression from his question.) I strongly favor separating explanatory material (such as goes into footnotes) from the bibliographic references ("citations"; the terminology here is wholly corrupted). But this "group" method described at WP:REFNEST is quite unwieldy. And inherently flawed in what it tries to do: nest a footnote inside of a footnote. Perhaps not as absurd as trying to nest a citation -- by which I mean a bibliographic reference -- inside a citation, but still quite dubious.

In my conception the footnotes (endnotes) provide the level of explanation or augmentation of anything in the text that, for whatever reason, is not satisfactorily put into the text directly. To have a tertiary level for explaining the explanation -- well, if "absurd" is too strong it certainly is not so by much. It evinces a basic flaw in the explanation. And not countenanced by any standard usage. (The only instances I recall of footnotes containing footnotes are in Terry Prachett's novels.)

The {{Harv}} templates (and pulling the citation templates out of the footnotes) allow exactly the kind of multiple reference to a source as Jinnai asks about. Which may work with group notes, but that and nested references are different issues. Which I think are unnecessary, and unuseful. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:18, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

A lot of times I'm editing articles that already have a well-established citation style. Also the problem with that style if you need to remove a source you have to an extra step in editing. I mostly use harvard style with articles that generally use multiple books or journals for citations rather than webpages or audio-visual media.陣内_Jinnai 19:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Problem with "that" style? I suspect you are talking about the common practice of putting the citation templates in the footnotes (<ref> tags), which then requires "named" ref tags (<ref name=...>) to do multiple cites. And may require adjustments elsewhere in an article if a citation is removed. Well, that is why I recommend Harv. And I generally won't edit articles that are done with named refs. Or I will convert them to Harv. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:44, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I generally name references by default unless i'm 99.99$ certain they won't be used elsewhere (ie its only being used to verify a date). The problem I was talking about is removing references in the article and people leaving references at the bottom. This does happen more often than you might think if the citations from one source are removed entirely (for whatever reason).陣内_Jinnai 19:15, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

I suspect you don't mean to "name" a reference in the sense of a verb; that is, to give a name to a reference. I suspect you mean that, by default, you use "named references", meaning those <ref name=..> tags that take a name. Which is what people have to use when they have put their "citation" (the bibliographic reference, using the {{citation}} template) inside the footnote, and want to refer to (cite) it more than once.

And you are right -- if you remove the footnote (what you are calling the reference) that contains the citation, oops, any other "named refs" referring to it will break. Your choices are: 1) find one of the other similarly named refs and stuff the citation in there; 2) put the citation template in a separate list and link to it with Harv (and replacing the other named refs); 3) don't edit articles with such cumbersome. structures. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:27, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

"Id. or "ibid." equivalent for Wiki-footnotes?

I am editing a list with of necessity many (MANY) citations to one large four volume book. As per Wiki format I am using the ref name ="large four volume book" tag. But the resulting footnote won't include volume numbers or page numbers. Instead it ends up with ridiculously redundant cites to one footnote describing the book, with no way for readers to know WHERE in the book to find what they are looking for. The footnote looks like this: " a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av aw ax ay az ba bb bc bd be bf bg bh bi bj bk bl bm bn bo bp bq br bs bt bu bv bw bx by bz cacb cc cd ce cf cg ch ci cj ck cl cm cn co cp cq cr cs ct cu cv cw cx cy cz da db dc dd de df dg dh di dj dk Descriptions are from the Registry database or from Mclane, Charles; Carol (1997). Islands of the Mid-Maine Coast. Tilbury House & Island Institute. ISBN 0-00448-184-0." Is there a Wiki protocol that would allow the equivalent of an Id. cite, as in "McLane at Vol. 3 p. 246?"ElijahBosley ^{(talk ☞)} 14:12, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

No. And should not be, because of all kinds of potential complications as explained somewhere else.

It could be said that '<ref name="xxx" />' is the equivalent of id, which partially shows the basic problem. As was discussed in the preceeding section. I think named refs are an abomination, and my suggestion is that you switch to {{Harv}}. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 16:26, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

An abomination? Loathed, despised, detested, abhorred, deplored--yikes. I better switch to {{Harv}} before I get lynched. I will study the example you kindly provided above and try to learn how to use it. Thanks for the suggestion. ElijahBosley ^{(talk ☞)} 21:06, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

I have had this issue open as T25455 for some time. If it is just one or two cites, I use {{scref}}/{{scnote}}. See reference ^[a] in List of Eagle Scouts (Boy Scouts of America) ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:17, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

Named refs considered a bug? I could go with that. :-> - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:02, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

See if {{listref}} helps. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:20, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Note the "It [listref] is intended for minimal use...." It seems rather a kludge that can't overcome the basic problem: named refs. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I really don't see the issue with named refs. You could potentially use {{listref}} for every reference in an article, but its intent is only for use where backlinks are an issue. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

One problem with named refs is just as ElijahBosley stated at the top of this discussion: long strings of back links. Adding another level of complication with listref is not a net improvement. There are other problems, but was that just a passing comment, or should this be a new discussion? - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 16:13, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

If you wish to preserve the page numbers, then you could try using this style (with separate "Notes" and "References" sections) Bluap (talk)

It was not clear to me reading the bug report mentioned above it it was a report on a bug I have found on some pages. I have noticed on several pages where there are a lot of links to the same general reference using harv (not sure what a lot is but it is grater than 40) that following references in the relist do not have the same number on the inline citation as that in the reference list. The link still works it is just that the numbering is different. Next time I come across one I'll list it here. -- PBS (talk) 19:29, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

That bug is related only to massive uses of the same named <ref> tag; see {{listref}} for an example. For Harvard templates, User:Ucucha/HarvErrors will show errors. I am working with User:Ucucha on some other template error detection. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:08, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have started a rewrite at User:Gadget850/footnotes. Please review and comment. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 03:38, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think a rewrite is necessary?--Kotniski (talk) 08:00, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps because there is an appalling level of confusion regarding citation? I would ask, given the lack of consensus on various key issues, is a rewrite premature? Although it could be part of a forward moving process. — J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:26, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a help page, and documents how it works— I don't understand where consensus comes into it. I am actively improving the draft, so view it as you will. If there is something that is unclear, then lets discuss it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:03, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking at the draft at the moment, its main problem seems to be that it is too focused on citations (references), rather than the technical side of producing footnotes for whatever purpose. Though references are obviously the main use of footnotes (which we already mention), I would rather keep to the division of material that we agreed on when we eliminated the MOS/Footnotes page: the Help page is about the technical methods for producing footnotes in general, while WP:CITE is about good practice for making citations (which obviously frequently make use of the technical methods for footnotes). I'm still not really seeing why you think this page needs to undergo another major rewrite - if there's confusion regarding citation, then it's a problem to be resolved at the WP:CITE page, rather than here.--Kotniski (talk) 08:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what you are reading. Citations (notes giving bibliographic information about each cited source and placed in the <ref> tags) are mentioned in passing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:26, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, for example, at the start of your "Elements" section, you say: "The footnote system displays two elements in an article: the in-text cite (sometimes called the inline cite) and the reference list." Instead of talking generally about "footnote markers" and "footnotes", as we do at the moment, you virtually assume (by choosing the words "cite" and "references") that we're only interested in citation footnotes. Perhaps you could explain what you think is wrong with the page as it is at the moment? I'm not seeing any reason to subject it to any kind of major overhaul.--Kotniski (talk) 08:33, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

What is a footnote marker? Where did this term come from? Where is it used in other documentation? What style guides use it? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully you can figure it out from reading the article page, even if it’s not a common term. My Australian goverment style manual calls them “note identifiers” or “in-text note identifiers” (covering both footnotes and endnotes). Would mentioning that term help? When I renamed that section from “Creating a footnote” I was intending it would mean the superscript number in the text that corresponds with a footnote. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 14:14, 4 October 2011 (UTC).

Yes, that's the intended meaning. I'm quite happy with "footnote marker", but if there's a more standard name, we could use that instead. We shouldn't get it mixed up with the footnote itself, though; nor should we imply that it applies only in the case of citations/references; so (for both those reasons) I don't think "in-text cite" is a useful substitute.--Kotniski (talk) 14:30, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not without some experience in citation work, yet I don't recall ever hearing "footnote marker" or "note identifier"; I doubt if they are standard anywhere outside of the Australian government.

But take this back to Ed's comment that this is intended to document "how it works" – "it" is presumably "footnotes" (right?). And right here we have a problem: the discussion (documentation) is all about citation (referencing). "Footnotes" – and here this is synonymous with "endnotes", or just "notes" generally – are just containers of sorts mediated by the <ref> tags. They may contain citations/references, or they may contain explanatory comments about the text. Conversely, citations do not have to be in a footnote (between <ref> tags). And this is where I find matters very confusing, because I was taught that in-line citations are just that – in the line. I.e., not in a "note" somewhere else. (And usually in a "shortened" format, such as author-date, or some other system.) So even I, with some non-negligible experience on the topic, am immediately confused when text ostensibly about footnotes delves into citations and references, and then brings up some non-standard terms about in-line citations, which I was taught are antithetic to footnotes. My head spins!

Which I point out is a problem not so much with Ed's writing, as with the deeper confusion that seems to be imbued in Wikipedia (and even the wikimedia software) regarding "footnotes" and "citations". I think we really need to clarify the conceptual framework. Which would be (will be?) a pretty significant effort.

_ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:29, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

First problem: What is a footnote? I wish we had a different name for the cite.php footnote system, but I suppose we are stuck with it. Regardless, the Help page is not about footnotes in general, but the very specific cite.php method of creating in-text cites and reference lists. I have tried to clarify this in the lead and in User:Gadget850/footnotes#Glossary and by not using the term footnote except when referring to the cite.php system. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:04, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Help page is about the specific cite.php method of creating footnotes (not only cites and references), and we shouldn't adopt terminology that muddles that fact (though we're forced to accept a certain amount of muddle due to the fact that the tags are (ref) rather than (foot), say). But JJ's conceptual confusion relates more to the guideline WP:CITE than to this page - it's there that "inline citations" are defined to mean something that includes citation footnotes.--Kotniski (talk) 10:27, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I think we all agree that there is confusion (muddle). And not just in the markup tags for footnotes being called "ref", or the templates for building references being called "cite" and "citation" -- the confusion extends to the underlying concepts. All this is why I think extra care should be taken in carefully defining and using these terms. I would have this topic (footnotes) carefully distinguish these concepts and terms, focus on all the uses of footnotes (not just citation/reference), and push specific citation/reference material out to more appropriate topics. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:05, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Abandoned. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:09, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

And disappointed, as I think it could use a rewrite. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:31, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Being at an impasse, I will probably come back to this in a few months. I'm off to work on technical issues with referencing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:06, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Review

Let me take a different tack and comment on the current help page:

• Code: the proper term is markup, but the term is used on other help pages
• Footnote markers: style guides call this an in-text cite, in-text citation; other pages calls it an inline citation
• Footnote: footnote is used here as the name of the cite.php system and as the citation that appears in the reference list
• File:WP-Footnotes illustration.jpg Not true for list-defined references
• Footnote-text: style guides refer to this as the citation or cite
• Newline: no explanation of why you would want to do this; I have not noticed that this practice is widely used
• Footnote list: style guides and other WP documentation call this the reference list
• What it looks like: the ^{[citation needed]} is confusing at this point. We probably need a separate help page on dealing with referencing issues.
• Embedding references within footnotes: "Parenthetical referencing is commonly used as a workaround." That implies mixing footnotes and parenthetical referencing.

this is a partial list. Busy at the moment characterizing a cite.php bug introduced in the upgrade. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:23, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be nothing we can do to persuade you that footnotes are not necessarily references. Style guides only refer to these things as "inline citations", "reference list" etc. when they are talking about referencing/citing sources. This is what we cover at WP:CITE. But this page (the help page on footnotes generally - at least the cite.php footnotes) is not restricted to references/citations, and therefore shouldn't use terminology that suggests it is. The terminology it uses should be appropriate to all types of footnotes, not only references.--Kotniski (talk) 14:59, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Abandoned. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:10, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Help

WP:REFNEST was stopped working today - as you can see from the example quoted, which now says "1.^ A footnote.?UNIQ2c9fa3426d73c1e0-nowiki-00000058-QINU?1?UNIQ2c9fa3426d73c1e0-nowiki-00000059-QINU?". What's changed, and what do we need to do about it - this affects article space as well. Shem (talk) 14:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#bug in #tag:ref parser function. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

 Fixed ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Navbox

I created {{Wikipedia referencing}} to tie the relevant pages together and replace the See also list in an organized manner. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:39, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Added, replacing See also. These links were removed but are not in the navbox:

• m:Help:Footnotes, general footnotes documentation for the MediaWiki software: outdated documentation
• mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php, technical details on the Cite.php software extension which provids the footnoting functionality: outdated documentation
• mw:Extension:Biblio, an extension of Mediawiki which provides a citation manager (beta maturity): not installed, thus useless to editors

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:29, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Please consider adding information about tools that assist with citations, and some don't . Jc3s5h (talk) 13:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I thought about that, but some tools need explanations about when and why to use them. There is a lot of duplication and some tools are not well documented. How about we start Wikipedia:Tools#Referencing to give an overview. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

That would certainly be a good start, although I would eventually like to see the better tools mentioned in the navigation box. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:30, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I started at User:Gadget850/Tools#Referencing, which illustrates my concern. Please add as you find. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

And jsut found Wikipedia:Citation tools. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:00, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Avoiding alphanumeric backlinks and alphanumeric footnotes

Apparently they can be confusing, as indicated at User talk:Vadmium#Template:ISO 15924 script codes and Unicode, about footnote g. Any ideas how I could achieve footnotes like this,

The only ways I can think of is to avoid the lower-alpha (and perhaps the upper-alpha) groups, or use the less automated {{ref label}} and {{note label}} templates instead. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 15:01, 15 October 2011 (UTC).

No. We discussed this when we did the list styling of the custom stuff. We would have to ask the devs for an alternate table like the current one at MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels. For your particular issue, you could use one of the other groups. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:14, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me there is rather much confusion here. Is it possible that the question here is not so much using letters (alphanumerics) for the links to the footnotes, as how the backlinks for multiple references are handled? E.g., instead of a note with multiple backlinks (the "^{a b c}" business), having multiple notes each with a single backlink? If that is the case, the solution is easy: don't use named refs. _ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 18:42, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, but in the script code table example I gave there were a dozen references to (and back links from) the same g footnote, and also quite a few for the h note. I think turning each of them into independent footnotes would be too cumbersome. Anyways, I ended up using {{cnote2|n=0}} templates which is less automated but has the flexibility of allowing the back links to be disabled. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 03:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC).

T25455 ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Multiple reference lists

I updated this, but it is rather long for a technique that is not often used. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:20, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this is that complicated. Let me know what you don't understand here and I will try to fix it. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:42, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

The things I probably would have wanted information on were:

• That it’s possible to have multiple instances of the <references> or {{reflist}} elements, especially using the same “group” (already implied elsewhere when the groups are different)
• What it actually means and whether it’s guaranteed or “supported”. I gather that each <references> element in the text of a page, including transcluded templates, “closes” the preceding group of <ref> elements and produces the corresponding list, after which any new <ref> elements have to go into a new <references> list.
• Point out that it doesn’t just make identical copies of a global list, as you could otherwise expect.

This stuff wasn’t really mentioned anywhere (as far as I could find) and the only reason I thought it was allowed was the help page itself used multiple lists. But the explanation of the {{reflist|close=1}} business is also nice to know. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 04:56, 19 October 2011 (UTC).

• "Normally different reference lists would use different groups, so the reference list markup will be closed."
• I don't know if it is guaranteed or supported, but it is how it works. We tried making {{reflist}} close refs automatically but failed.
• This is noted.
• See User:Gadget850/Multiple uses of reflist for a more extensive sample.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Talk archive

This page will attract a lot of discussion; propose that we set up MiszaBot to auto-archive. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:02, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

 Done ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

During the move from Wikipedia:Manual of Style (footnotes) to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes, talk archives were orphaned.

Pages with the prefix 'Manual of Style (footnotes)' in the 'Wikipedia' and 'Wikipedia talk' namespaces:

Wikipedia:

Manual of Style (footnotes)

• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Cite link labels

Wikipedia talk:

Manual of Style (footnotes)

• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 1
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 10
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 11
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 12
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 2
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 3
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 4
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 5
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 6
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 7
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 8
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 9
• Manual of Style (footnotes)/Mixed citations and footnotes

Propose that we move them to subpages here and link them in the archive box. Move Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Footnotes to Archive 13. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

 Done I did not move the discussions, but added a separate archive box. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

References

</nowiki>}}

In that example, the "close=1" parameter on the second Reflist is not needed, correct? That is, it is needed within Help:Footnote's markup, because the page contains multiple Reflist, but in the "nowiki" example raw Markup shown to readers, the "close" param is not what they would need. --Noleander (talk) 13:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Correct, and a point I keep trying to make. The markup that shows the output needs it to keep the example separate, but including it in the visual markup is confusing. It doesn't really harm anything if it is used, but it is rarely needed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:40, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if we put some example layouts in this Help page, the examples above would have to be amended to include the "raw markup". The reason the proposed example above does not yet show the raw markup is because the example was originally intended to go into the MOS Layout page (which is not a Help page), simply to illustrate the choices of layout available. But if the examples end up here in Help:Footnotes then the raw markup would have to be added (also, I still am suggesting a terse summary of the choices in WP:FNNR). --Noleander (talk)

I fixed the "close" issue. --Noleander (talk) 14:31, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

A tweak?

I like the recent changes. But I wonder if the first sentence might be better as:

This page explains how to create footnotes in articles using <ref> tags.

The current version ("footnotes or <ref> tags") suggests these are alternatives, whereas actually one is the means of creating the other.

I think the second sentence could be clarified, but I haven't quite figured out a replacement yet. Perhaps something along the line of:

Text placed between the <ref> and </ref> tags is automatically moved by the Wiki software to a list created elsewhere in the article (using something like <reference /> or {{reflist}}), replacing it with a link (a super-scripted number, like this^[1]) to the footnote.

More closer to perfection? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I see it has been changed, and I agree. <ref> tags are the tool used to create footnotes, and there are several templates that can be used in place of <ref>. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Gadget, I amended your comment slightly, because it didn't seem to make sense - {{ref}} is a template, not a tag. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

That what I get for hurrying! ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of MOS Layout: footnotes/notes section: more examples?

There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Add_example_into_WP:FNNR.3F about a proposal to add examples showing various section layouts for Notes/Footnotes/Citations/References section. There is some overlap with this footnotes topic area, so editors interested in footnotes may want to weigh in. --Noleander (talk) 13:17, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

That discussion is leaning towards putting only a brief overview in the WP:FNNR MOS section, and putting the detailed examples in another WP page. This FOOTNOTE page may be a good candidate for the detail. The proposed new guidance is presented below. Background is in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Add_example_into_WP:FNNR.3F, but the essence is: presently, the WP MOS/help pages do not contain clear guidance on the choices editors face on how to place both citations and explanatory footnotes at the bottom of an article. The proposed content (below) is intended to give that guidance. --Noleander (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposed addition to this FOOTNOTE help

See also: Wikipedia:Citations § Variation in citation methods, and Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout § Notes_and_References

There are several layouts that are acceptable for the sections which contain citations, references, and explanatory notes. Wikipedia does not have a single style that is mandatory, or preferred. The notes can be placed within a single section or in two sections, and the citations can either be "short" (with a separate Reference section) or long.

Example A) This example puts all citations and explanatory notes into a single Notes sections, and does not use shortened citations:

The Sun is pretty big. But the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Notes

---

Example B) This example uses shortened citations (with a References section) and combines explanatory notes and citations in a Notes section:

The Sun is pretty big. But the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Notes

---

References

---

Example C) This example uses shortened citations (with a References section) and separates explanatory notes from citations. Notice that for an article without explanatory notes (in other words, an article with only citations) example B and example C are nearly identical (the only difference is the section names).

The Sun is pretty big. But the Moon is not so big. The Sun is also quite hot.

Notes

---

Citations

---

References

---

--Noleander (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

I'm leaning towards a separate help page on explanatory notes, other wise you will have to add all this to the three main methods. And what is with the HTML? Readers who peek under the hood will never understand these examples from looking at the markup. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Gadget: Thanks for the feedback. What are the "three main methods" you are referring to? When you ask about the HTML, do you mean that the proposal above does not include "how to" examples of the markup a user would need to utilize to achieve the given results? The purpose of the examples above is not to provide Help on markup: that is already covered in other articles, including Help:Footnotes and Help:Shortened footnotes and WP:Citing sources. The examples above are focusing simply on two high-level (not Markup) choices a user has: (1) How many sections should I use for my notes/citations/references? and (2) If I have explanatory notes: what kinds of choices do I have for presenting them? I don't think creating a new page is a good idea, because there are already too many pages that cover footnotes, including WP:FNNR, Help:Footnotes, Help:Shortened footnotes and WP:Citing sources. Adding a fifth page is spreading the information out too far: novice editors would never be able to grasp it all (heck, I'm having a hard time correlating these four pages, and I'm not a novice). I understand that HELP FOOTNOTES and HELP SHORTENED FOOTNOTES are primarily aimed at the markup instructions, but there is no harm in including some additional guidance that is not exclusively about markup. If you really object to putting the examples in FOOTNOTES (because it is a Help page that should be devoted to markup), what do you think about putting the examples in a footnote (so it doesnt clutter the main text) in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout? Or, what do you think about putting this material in WP:Citing sources (which is not a HELP page devoted to markup). --Noleander (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

If the markup has been altered so as to keep the example reference sections close to the example text, I would suggest an explicit warning not to use the wikitext in real articles, and pointers to where to find the appropriate markup. People are used to looking at wikitext to see how to achieve certain results, and need explicit warning if that is not a good idea. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

If the "under the hood" markup in the proposal above is of concern, then by all means it should (and will) be fixed. (But note that the misleading Markup used in the examples came, nearly verbatim, from WP:CITESHORT ... although the latter does include the markup above its examples). To repeat: the purpose of this proposal is not to explain how to do the markup: that is already covered elsewhere, but instead to explain two "high level" (non markup) choices users often face when crafting articles. The key question we need to answer is: Which WP page should the above examples (assuming the internal markup is satisfactory) go into? WP:FOOTNOTE? WP:FNNR? WP:CITATION? --Noleander (talk) 22:02, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

By the way, looking at WP:CITESHORT, that is not a bad place to consider putting these examples. Not inside WP:CITESHORT, but maybe a section preceding it, by way of introduction? --Noleander (talk) 22:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Since Help:Footnotes provides the most detail about footnotes, and this is quite detailed information, I think that's where it belongs. In WP:CITE I would add, in the section on parenthetical referencing, that discursive footnotes could be used in combination with parenthetical referencing, and it is even possible to put parenthetical references within discursive footnotes. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:20, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that sounds good. My inclination was Help:Footnotes also, because - as you say - it has a lot of detail already, but also because novice users are most likely to type "WP:FOOTNOTES" or "HELP:FOOTNOTES" into the Search field when in need of help on these topics. I'll wait awhile and see if other editors have any suggestions before making any changes. --Noleander (talk) 22:29, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I added the examples listed above into the Help page. Per the discussion above, I added the markup to illustrate how to create each of the examples. I made the examples as terse as possible, without losing info. I put them at the bottom of the page, so the size would not be as much of an issue. They seem to be a good "conclusion" example, to wrap-up the page since they illustrate several topics that are discussed throughout the page (e.g. grouping, explanatory vs citations, etc). --Noleander (talk) 14:23, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

I read through it, but didn't examine it word-by-word. Nice job. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:34, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

There are at least two other methods: see User:Gadget850/Help:Explanatory notes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:REFGROUP contains extraneous "close" param

In WP:REFGROUP there is an example:

This part of the text requires clarification,<ref group="note">Listed separately from the citation</ref> whereas the entire text is cited.<ref>Citation.</ref>

== Notes ==

{{reflist|group=note}}

--Noleander (talk) 13:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Multiple footnote styles in a single article

I've spent the past 2 days trying to find justification or refutation for using long and short forms of footnotes in a single article. There is no clear directive.

• On the one hand I've found this statement: "Where shortened and long footnotes are mixed.." in Help:Shortened_footnotes#Notes_list
• On the other hand, I've found this statement: However, citations within a given article should follow a consistent style" in WP:CITEVAR

Is there anywhere or anyone who could point me to a really unamiguous WP statement that says you can or can't use both short and long footnotes in a single article? -- kosboot (talk) 20:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I have asked this before with no clear consensus. I think it is visually unappealing, but it is fairly common. I suspect it happens when an editor unfamiliar with shortened footnotes makes additions. When I wrote Help:Shortened_footnotes#Notes_list, I did not try to make up a new rule, just to account for current practices. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Chicago style recognizes mixing short citations with explanatory footnotes. I don't recall if any of the Wikipedia pages explicitly allow this, but I've always presumed it was OK. Help:Shortened_footnotes#Notes_list is only about the actual length of the footnote, and provides no insight about whether mixing short citations with explanatory footnote is appropriate. Also, it provides no insight about whether it is OK to mix full citations and short citations in the footnotes section; I regard the latter as an error and correct it if I have some spare time. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:05, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

It is tempting to conclude that footnotes should be all short or all long, after all, consistency is a good thing and generally promoted in WP. However, there is situation where mixing is inevitable: lets say there are 30 footnotes, and 5 works named in the References section; say that 26 of the footnotes rely on the ref works, and so those 26 cites are short. But the other 4 cites are to obscure/peculiar works that really do not warrant an entry in the References section, so those 4 cites are long. Thus, short and long can/should be mixed in one article. To see what I'm driving at, look at todays FA article Edward VII ...notice that about half the cites are short (refering to major works listed in Refs section) and the other half are long. For that reason, I dont think WP could really suggest that all be short. On the other hand, if this is causing confusion, WP:FOOTNOTES could be enhanced to mention this situation and explain it (without endorsing one approach or another). --Noleander (talk) 21:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Just remembered an opinion made somewhere that the long footnotes get less emphasis when mixed since only the shortened footnotes have a matching entry in the full citation list. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:32, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

That is a good point. Even tho short can be mixed with long (see example in my post above) there is a consistency there: footnotes that refer to major works are short; and footnotes that refer to obscure/peculiar works are long. Thus, I would posit that an editor should not mix long & short for cites referenced to major works (that is, for major works: all cites should be short). --Noleander (talk) 21:41, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Shortened footnotes are not always short. If a note contains a quote, for example, it will take up quite a bit of space, even though the bibliographic details are shortened and one must refer to the bibliography for the rest of the bibliographic details.

Also, "Edward VII" could have listed the obscure or peculiar works in the alphabetical list of references, and would have made that section a complete library "shopping list". The citations which most style guides say should appear only in the footnote, and not in the alphabetical list, are things which will not be found in a library or or on the Internet, such as interviews and personal correspondence (which, of course, are not acceptable sources for Wikipedia articles).

I would put any extended comments in the footnotes if they involve more than one source, or are just about that particular citation ("Jones (1999) used the constants from Smith (1986)", or a quotation that applies to the particular statement being supported. Extended comments that apply equally to every citation of a source would go in the alphabetical list (e.g. "Allow 2 months for requests to access the special collections room to be approved"). Jc3s5h (talk) 21:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I've never seen the need for quotations within references. Short notes should be just that: author(s), year, page(s). --Redrose64 (talk) 22:04, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:V footnote 6 suggests quotes in certain situations, and when the Wikipedia translates a foreign source, I recall there is a guideline that calls for the editor to quote the foreign language passage. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:13, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I suspect the initial question arises from misconception that the "short" and "long" forms of citation constitute different styles. A "long" form includes the "full bibliographic details" (as the CMOS puts it) for identifying and finding a source in the external world. These details should be included at least once, but become tedious (to say the least) if replicated every time a work is cited. Therefore the practice of putting the "long" – i.e., complete and fullest – form only once in a bibliography or references section, and using the short form within the article, which contains just enough information (typically author and date) to find the full form in the references list. Both forms are links (one from within the article to the references list, the other from the reference list to the external world); their differences reflect different contexts and needs, and do not constitute different styles. Having both forms in the text (or in the notes in the text) would be inconsistent; having only short forms in the text/notes and long ("full") forms in the reference list is not inconsistent. I don't recall any WP policy that says this exactly, but it is reasonable, the standard scholarly practice, and I believe in line with all MOS authorities. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 23:26, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but you don't seem to be describing Help:Shortened footnotes, which is the subject of our discussion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

We may indeed have differing conceptions here, as I find the definition of "shortened footnotes" ("are a hybrid of standard footnotes and parenthetical referencing (Harvard). They use in-text cites that link to a shortened reference in a list and a separate full reference list.") somewhat ambiguous, and confounds what I see as two distinct concepts. I think my conception, which leans towards the "short cite" of CMOS, is consistent, and compatible with this definition and its examples. But perhaps you all are more focused on the "footnote" aspect, with a slightly different result? Perhaps someone would distinguish "short footnotes" versus "long footnotes"? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 18:04, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I would say that a shortened footnote, as it appears to the reader, consists of two parts, a numeral or other short identifier in the running text, and a footnote which gives enough information about the source that it may be identified in the alphabetical bibliography. A parenthetical citation is not a shortened footnote because it is not a footnote. The terms "short footnote" and "long footnote" ought to be avoided, because they may be interpreted as the amount of screen space they occupy (as seen by the reader), rather than how much bibliographic information they contain. So a shortened footnote is one that is has been shortened by the omission of most of the bibliographic information, and a full bibliographic footnote is one that retains the full bibliographic info. An explanatory footnote contains no bibliographic information, and is present for some reason unrelated to citing a source. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:29, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I posted my question in response to a debate I had with another user. With over 30 footnotes, we decided to go with the shortened form and create a list of references. I have to say - it looks much nicer, and is much easier to navigate. If you want to see the bibliographic information, it's larger (because it's listed in the reference section, not in the footnotes). So put me down in favor of shortened footnotes. -- kosboot (talk) 19:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussion is rather obscurated in that the generic term footnote is used here to mean a Wikipedia-specific method of creating in-text citations and footnote lists. We can create an in-text citation that looks like in any number of ways, but only the use of Cite <ref> tags qualify as footnotes. By contrast, the use of {{ref}} / {{note}} is documented as the Footnote3 system.

To define elements:

This is an in-text citation:

This is a footnote:

This is a shortened footnote:

This is the citation from the reference list that matches the shortened footnote:

• Elk, Anne (November 16, 1972). Anne Elk's Theory on Brontosauruses.

When you discuss footnotes and shortened footnotes as two separate elements, it gets confusing, thus the use of the terms long or standard footnotes in some places. Even the use of reference list is confusing, as the list can contain notes, citations or both. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:24, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

True re "confusing", and I think you just provided your own example: you are confounding citations with footnotes. I.e., "Elk 1972, p. 5." is a short citation, while "Elk, Anne ... Brontosauruses" is a long citation (or perhaps a reference), regardless of whether they appear in the text, or in a footnote, or anywhere else. (This corresponds to what I described above.) Footnotes (notes) are longer or shorter depending on the amount of text (which may include citations) between the <ref> and </ref> tags, with no particular significance to the length. "Shortened footnote" is thus a misnoner that confounds citation (which it illustrates) and footnote (where citations typically appear). Don't confuse the contents with the location. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 23:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Correction: I misread your statement; I should have said at the start that "footnotes" and "shortened footnotes' (citations) are confusing because we don't consider them separately. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 23:46, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with JJ somewhat, but I think we can say that in the context of this help page, "Footnotes", we can rule out parenthetical citations. Also, "shortened footnote" means it is shorter than it would have been, except that something has been removed. What has been removed is some of the bibliographic information. It would make no sense to talk about "shortened footnote" in the sense of a shortened explanatory footnote, because such notes could contain anything at all, and no guideline could attempt to describe a shortening process. Also, the Chicago Manual of Style uses the term "shortened citations" but only uses it to refer to shortened footnotes or endnotes (16th ed. p. 667). Jc3s5h (talk) 23:54, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not coin "shortened footnote", and the use is probably too ingrained to change. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:02, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

That "shortened footnote" is ingrained is a big part of the problem, and all the more reason why we should push back; at the least we should not be part of the problem. Here I think we should clearly distinguish footnotes from their contents (e.g., citations), and push the details of how to do citations to more appropriate pages. Perhaps we should even mention that footnotes are essentially an alternative to putting "stuff" – including citaitons – directly in the text. But to take this back to kosboot's initial query: shortened and long footnotes makes little or no sense (as Jc3s5h just said), and "shortened" citations (short cites) and "long" (complete) references work together, they are not separate "styles". ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 20:35, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Glossary

The above discussion highlights the confusing use of various terms. Here are the most common terms as currently used on Wikipedia:

Backlink

An HTML link from the reference list citation to the in-text cite.

Bibliography

A list of works by or related to the subject.

Citation

Notes giving bibliographic information about each cited source.

Footnote label

The alphanumeric character shown in the in-text cite and the reference list. Many style guides refer to this as the note reference number.

Footnote link

An HTML link from the in-text citation to the citation or shortened footnote.

Content

Text in the body of the article.

Explanatory notes

Supplemental information that is not a source but expands on the content. Also known as content notes, substantive notes or discursive notes.

Footnotes

A Wikipedia-specific method of creating in-text cites and reference lists using the Cite software extension.

In-text citation

The element placed in the text that contains a link to the citation that supports the preceding content. Created using <ref> tags or a related template. Formatted as a superscripted alphanumeric character (footnote label) enclosed by brackets with a link (footnote link) to the citation; example: . Many style guides refer to this as an in-text reference; some Wikipedia documentation may refer to it as an inline cite or inline citation.

Reference list

A list of citations or explanatory notes. The main reference list appears near the end of the page; separate references lists may include explanatory notes, table legends, notes and the like.

Shortened footnote

A Wikipedia-specific method of creating in-text cites and reference lists using the Cite software extension. The system consists of an in-text cite, a shortened footnote consisting of the authors, year and page and full citations to match the shortened footnote.

Source

Media that supports statements made in the content and meets the reliable sources guidelines.

General discussion

A few changes based on other discussions:

• Cite label → Footnote label
• Cite link → Footnote link

This is very much open to discussion. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:14, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Can other editors make enhancements to the above glossary (e.g. bold "in-text cite" -> "in-text or in-line cite", or "Notes giving bibliographic information about each cited source" -> "Bibliographic information defining the source of some material".). --Noleander (talk) 00:18, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

How about we discuss and change when we reach consensus? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 00:24, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't have that much time :-) --Noleander (talk) 00:26, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll offer these alternative definitions:

Footnotes

A Wikipedia-specific method of creating in-text footnote reference numbers and footnote lists using the Cite software extension. Because articles are not broken up into pages, endnote and note are effectively synonymous with footnote for the purpose of Wikipedia articles.

In-text cite

The visual element placed in the text which indicates which source supports, or is related to, the text close to the in-text cite. It may be formatted as a superscripted alphanumeric character (cite label) enclosed by brackets with a link (cite link) to the citation; example: . It may also be a parenthetical citation, or even text that describes the source (e.g., In the 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama....) Many style guides refer to this as an in-text citation or in-text reference. Some Wikipedia documentation may refer to it as an inline cite or inline citation.

Reference list

1. A list of citations or explanatory notes. The main reference list appears near the end of the page; separate references lists may include explanatory notes, table legends, notes and the like. 2. An alphabetical list of sources, where each entry gives the full bibliographic information.

Shortened footnote

A citation footnote which contains a subset of the full bibliographic information, which allows the full information to be found in a prior footnote or a separate alphabetical list of sources. Because Wikipedia articles are edited by many people, referring to a prior footnote is discouraged. A Wikipedia-specific method of creating in-text cites and reference lists using the Cite software extension is available. The system consists of an in-text cite, a shortened footnote consisting of the authors, year and page and full citations to match the shortened footnote.

Visual

The way a Wikipedia article appears to a reader, as opposed to the way it looks in wikitext.

Jc3s5h (talk) 00:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I can go with most of that. "It may also be a parenthetical citation, or even text that describes the source" is true, but outside the purview of the footnote system we are describing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:11, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It is not outside the purview if we just go by the title of the page, "Help:Footnotes", because, just going by the title, the purview includes an article that uses parenthetical referencing and explanatory footnotes. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:15, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It would probably throw a lot of exisiting users into a fit, but I would prefer absolute terms rather than the current hazy vocabulary in which concepts can be called any number of things. (I've seen numerous headings for the {{reflist}} that goes to show how indeterminate are these words.) Perhaps someone can set up a broader discussion elsewhere? -- kosboot (talk) 01:36, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not too happy with Bibliography being defined as "a list of works related to the subject", because there is some ambiguity. To some, that could be interpreted as meaning the "list of works in which information about the subject was found", which would make it almost synonymous with "Source" as defined above. I would prefer something like "a list of works credited to the subject", and that is how I interpreted it at Daniel Kinnear Clark#Bibliography. See also MOS:APPENDIX regarding the ambiguity of both "Bibliography" and "Sources". --Redrose64 (talk) 12:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Seeing how this is going, I have refactored the original list into section so we can better discuss these individually. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

So "a list of works credited to the subject" means a list of works thought to have been written by the subject, and only applies if the subject is a person or organization. I think a better definition, for our purposes, would be "a list of works used in creating the article, including both those works referred to by inline cites, and those works which provided general background information". A further reading list is a list of works which those interested in the subject would benefit from reading, but which were not used in writing the article (often discovered after the article was substantially complete). Jc3s5h (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Upon reflection, bibliography in this sense probably does not belong in the footnotes discussion. This use refers to a list of works separate from references that are either by the subject (Daniel Kinnear Clark#Bibliography) or about the subject (Harry S. Truman#Bibliography).

What is the intention of this glossary? I personally like the notion of a glossary, because it clears-up ambiguity and uncertainty. However, it would be nearly impossible to get it into any WP guideline, because of the multiplicity of terms approved by WP guidelines. For example, the glossary above has "Reference list - A list of citations or explanatory notes. The main reference list appears near the end of the page; separate references lists may include explanatory notes, table legends, notes and the like." Yet that is contrary to most top-quality WP articles which employ "References" as a section which contains a list of source works (which is more or less how "Bibliography" is defined above in the glossary). What is the intention of this glossary? Is there a specific proposal to add it into WP:FOOTNOTES? That would be a bit too narrow, because the terms overlap heavily with WP:LAYOUT and WP:CITE. So if the intention is to establish this glossary for WP, the discussion really needs to be moved to a more central location like Village Pump or Wikipedia:Centralized discussion. --Noleander (talk) 13:01, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Noleander's comment is in line with the approach of Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), which is careful to use terminology that is consistent when describing both the footnote system (which uses notes and a "bibliography") and the author-date system (which uses parenthetical references and "reference list"). Chicago uses one meaning for a word, independent of which citation style is being discussed.

Creating such a glossary would be creating a vocabulary for discussing citations, but would not necessarily correspond to headings that appear in articles. For example, we might adopt Chicago's meaning for a reference list, but an article following APA style would use the heading "Works cited". Jc3s5h (talk) 13:59, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

The reason I ask is: editors may want to comment on the glossary, but their comments will depend on the purpose: Is the glossary intended to be used in this Talk page to help editors communicate? Or is it intended to be a formal proposal to be inserted into WP:FOOTNOTE as an official terminology for that page? This distinction needs to be made clear because if it is the former, editors may just move on; but if it is the latter, editors would be more inclined to comment. Which is it? --Noleander (talk) 14:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

I have found the pervasive confusion of concepts to be the biggest difficulty in citing sources. But it is way too early (or ambitious?) to attempt any "official terminology". I think we should attempt to work out a glossary here that is conceptually consistent. Also, I see serious problems regarding "Reference list" and (especially) "Shortened footnote", but perhaps we need to agree on scope first. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 19:48, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Before this discussion, I (and I would guess most of the English-speaking world) would not have distinguished between a footnote (inserted comments) and a citation (just a reference to a source). I like the distinction, but I forsee it would make the creation of a footnote list labor intensive. But I'm all for this discussion of terms as listed in the glossary above. Perhaps the way to move is to focus on the purpose of each of the sections. -- kosboot (talk) 16:16, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

See question on "short footnote" terminology

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#RfC:_.22Short_cites.22_vs._.22Shortened_footnotes.22:_need_uniform_terminology for question on best terminology for short cites /short footnotes. --Noleander (talk) 14:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Ref name suggestion?

I wonder if it would be useful to suggest that names for named refs incorporate the author's last name and the year, similar to author-date referencing? I have seen cases that suggest new editors may occasionally grasp for a suitable name, and I think this would be useful guidance. And I know from experience that editing is a little easier when broken named refs carry at least a smidgen of information about the source. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

We can certainly add it as a practice. I generally use author-year, work-year or work-date. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Reusing a common partial reference in several references? (different page numbers)

So, is there no way to have multiple references to the same references but with a slight variation, like on the page number? --Chealer (talk) 05:03, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

See Help:Footnotes#Citing one book repeatedly with different page numbers. That needs some polishing, but it covers it pretty well. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That describes the use of {{rp}}, which is horrendous. (And I think inherently unpolishable.)

The problem posed (multiple use of references) is not new, and is solved: a single "full reference" for the source itself, and "short" (or "shortened") citations for specific passages. And the best way we have on WP for implementing the latter is {{Harv}}. We should work up better documentation for using it. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that {{rp}} is bad, because the information about which work to look at is in one spot, and the name of the work is in a different spot. With {{Harv}}, short information about which work to look in, which will be sufficient by the time you have obtained access to the work, which page to look on, and the Wikipedia article text are all together. With footnotes and short citations, the short info about the work and the page number are together. With {{rp}}, you better have some scraps of paper handy to write the page number down. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Documentation exists, see Help:Shortened footnotes and WP:CITESHORT. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I know of five ways to include page numbers or other in-source locators:

• Create a separate footnote for each citation and include the page number.
• Use shortened footnotes.
• Use named references with {{rp}} to create an in-text page locator.
• Use list-defined references with {{r}} to create an in-text page locator.
• Use parenthetical references.

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:01, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Help:Shortened footnotes shows how to manually format a link, and how to use {{sfn}} (which can get complicated); but doesn't even mention {{Harv}}. WP:CITESHORT has links to {{harvnb}} and related documentation, but only shows a purely textual form (no links) of doing a short citation. So strictly speaking, yes, there is documentation of Harv, but not in a readily findable or friendly form. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:HARV. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

{{Harv}} and similar templates are used in Parenthetical referencing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:37, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:HARV points to WP:Parenthetical referencing. Which both misconceives what "parenthetical" means, and confounds the use of the {{Harv}} templates with "parenthetical referencing". (Harv templates default to the "Harvard style" of author-date referencing, which can be used "parenthetically", but generally is not.) While it does do a good job of explaining the author-date system, about all it does in showing how to use Harv templates is two (?) examples and some links. At any rate, the direction provided above was not to WP:HARV, but to Help:Footnotes#Citing one book repeatedly with different page numbers, which uses {{rp}}. As I said before, we should work up better documentation. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

How can you tell that "Harv templates default to the 'Harvard style' of author-date referencing, which can be used 'parenthetically', but generally is not"? Jc3s5h (talk) 00:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

  By examination of the results? As to defaulting to identifying references by author-date: that's what they do, for both the tag put into the text ("Smith, 2000") and in building the link id (the "citeref") to the actual reference. As to overriding this default: I often do so with maps or other sources that are better known by a name not the author's. (See here.) As to not necessarily "parenthetically": that's what the other variants are for (e.g.: {{Harvnb}}, where "nb" stands for "no braces" [parentheses]). Though I sometimes use Harv links in the main text, I believe they are generally used in the text of footnotes, and there almost always without the "braces".

  The important thing to note is that "Harv" in the context of templates is primarily a way of creating links. They default to the Harvard style of identifying references by author and date, which is mistakenly termed parenthetical referencing. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not too happy with the {{rp}} solution either (it doesn't look so good on the page) but I'm trying to get a handle on which overall system is best, and all I'm saying is that I have no attachment to the rp-stuff if people here (who know more about referencing & citations than me) want to change it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

I've been experimenting with different approaches to documentation. Check my Citation primer and let me know on my talk page if that helps. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:23, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Terms

Since various discussions have resulted in no consensus as to terminology, I am just going to go with whatever occurs in this help page first and use them across the board on all help and template pages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Citation

Notes giving bibliographic information about each cited source.

Content

Text in the body of the article.

Explanatory notes

Supplemental information that is not a source but expands on the content.

Footnote backlink

An HTML link from the footnote list citation to the footnote marker.

Footnote label

The alphanumeric character shown in the footnote marker and the footnote list.

Footnote link

An HTML link from the footnote marker to the citation or shortened footnote.

Footnote list

A list of citations. The main footnote list appears near the end of the page; separate footnote lists may include explanatory notes, table legends, notes and the like.

Footnote markers

The element placed in the text that contains a link to the citation that supports the preceding content. Formatted as a superscripted alphanumeric character (footnote label) enclosed by brackets with a link (footnote link) to the citation.

Source

Media that supports statements made in the content and meets the reliable sources guidelines.

Discussion

• Comments - (1) can you provide links to prior discussions on this topic? I seem to recall there was a similar discussion 1 or 2 months ago; (2) The list above should include the term "Footnote" since that is a fundamental concept, and this is Help:Footnotes; (3) You should (or maybe you did alredady) put a notice on WP:CITING SOURCES and other related places pointing to this discussion; and (4) if your intention is to make this a widespread naming convention; you should probably do an RfC; otherwise the only input will be from the handful of editors that monitor Help:Footnotes. --Noleander (talk) 13:51, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Good points. Let me work on that. I should also round up other terms used and where. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:54, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

... (5) the definition of "citation" is a bit circular, since it contains the word "cited" ... You should define it without resorting to "cited"; (6) if your intention is to make this a widely used glossary, you'll need to define "inline citation" and distinguish it from other kinds of citations. (7) may want to define "short(ened) citation" since that term is used a lot in the WP pages. --Noleander (talk) 14:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

  Noleander may be thinking of Help_talk:Footnotes/Archive_1#Glossary, the attempt back in November to define some terms.

  Ed got ahead of me here, as I was going to reopen the discussion, but taking on one term at a time. We should give careful consideration to the proper venue. It might be easier to start with a small crowd, see what can be hammered out, then extend to a broader group. Or not. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I commented at WT:Parenthetical_referencing#Move_to_Help_2 that building a map of all the citation related topics might be useful. It could also be useful for determining where to best discuss terms. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:57, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:List-defined reference how-to guide

I just stumbled across Wikipedia:List-defined reference how-to guide. Should we merge here or use it as the main page for LDR? ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:42, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It's a specific method, it will be less confusing to not mix in in with other methods. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Footnote ref. at beginning of page

Is there ever a reason to place a footnote reference number at the beginning of a page? I'm trying to understand the changes to List of Weatherman members without making it worse. I took footnote one to be an anomaly that had been misplaced and I moved it to the most logical place--the opening statement of the article, but this has been reverted. I think the footnote may have been intended to cover the article's general topic--and that it was intended as a footnote to the article's title. It gets more complicated, but I thought I would ask this preliminary question first before taking it to the talk page of the article or of the user who reverted my change. Thanks. SeoMac (talk) 18:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like a new editor is trying to add a reference (for the whole list) but is not familiar with footnoting in WP. I'll post an offer of help on his/her Talk page. I also reverted the change. --Noleander (talk) 18:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Announcing template:efn

We've created a an "explanatory footnote template" {{efn}} and a template {{notelist}} to streamline and dumb-proof the process of creating a separate section for explanatory footnotes. Have a look. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 19:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Documented at Shortened footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Long and short footnotes intermixed

I propose to specifically deprecate mixing long and short footnotes in favor of {{rp}}. Ideas? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:53, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you are bringing {{rp}} into this— a lot of editors simply hate it, so this is bound to fail. And it has nothing to do with mixing long and shortened footnotes. I don't like mixing them because you end up with long footnotes stuffed into a three or four column list. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:11, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

OK. My main issue is the inconsistency of long and short footnotes together – these are two different approaches to footnotes that shouldn't get mixed per WP:CITEVAR anyway. I see {{rp}} as a path to solving the problem, though it can be left to editors' discretion. I believe there should be some notice about inappropriateness of mixing short and long footnotes in order to bind all relevant discussions to this talk page and to make a site-wide consensus being more evident. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 11:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I suspect many instances of mixture occur because someone cleans up the article and uses short footnotes consistently, but later editors add material without taking the time to figure out what citation system is in use. I also dislike mixture because I am deprived of one list where I can peruse the sources that the article is based on. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:50, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Where an article already contains a significant number of long refs, and I wish to add content refd from two or three different places in the same book, I'll sometimes use one <ref>{{cite book}}</ref> inline and several <ref>{{harvnb}}</ref>, see the MacDermot and Awdry refs in Chippenham railway station. This permits me to avoid: (i) repeating the whole citation with the page number being the sole difference; (ii) using {{rp}}; (iii) using the ibid. and op. cit. technique; or (iv) controversially converting the whole lot to Shortened footnotes.

I should point out that whilst I generally favour Shortened footnotes and have successfully used it for web sources (see Reston railway station), there are times when it looks odd, like when the number of long refs is similar to the number of short notes (see LMS Hughes Crab), perhaps because only one page has been used in each book. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

  You are postulating that mixing so-called "long and short footnotes" is a problem? I don't see it that way, but perhaps we are not thinking of the same things. It would help if you state exactly what you think the problem is, and provide one or more specific examples, so we can all be looking at the same thing.

  But whatever the problem may, {{rp}} is surely not the answer. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk)

CITEVAR doesn't prohibit editors from using both long and short citations. In fact, it can't, because if you use short footnotes ("Jones 2010, p. 46"), then you must use long citations elsewhere, so we can find out exactly what publication Jones wrote in 2010.

Whether those get separated into two sections or mixed in one is a stylistic choice that is entirely up to the editors at the article. If editors decide that it looks silly to have a tiny section for shortened citations—only 6% of the ~150 citations at Breast cancer would use that format—then they are free to mix them all together. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree; it's not a problem and doesn't need fixing. Textbooks do it all the time. Regards, RJH (talk) 23:29, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I was involved in a similar discussion a few months ago (now archived). As much as some people may be conditioned by editorial consistency in the print/scholarly world, Wikipedia appears determined to be vague (i.e. not wanting to come down in favor of one style to the exclusion of others). The closest thing I can find is the suggestion that a style remain consistent in a single article but can vary between different articles: Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Citation_style Yet I must add that I've often seen this guideline ignored. -- kosboot (talk) 23:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that the examples from WhatamIdoing (Breast cancer) and Redrose (Chippenham railway station) settle the issue. In the first case, there are only a few footnotes where multiple pages of the same source are cited and these are shortened. No others need be shortened. In the case of Chippenham railway station, Redrose is using shortened footnotes as a form of "ibid.". In both these cases, the mixture of short and long footnotes is a citation style. The only way to change a citation style in Wikipedia is post on the talk pages of individual articles and change them yourself if local editors agree; there is no reason to involve help pages or the manual of style. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 00:54, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  It seems we are generally agreed that mixing short/long refs should not be deprecated.

  As a side comment, it seems to me that where there are two or more citations pointing to a common full reference, most (?) editors can see using short cites (e.g., with Harv) to link to a single instance of the full reference (with all of the gory bibliographic details) as being less cluttered, more efficient, etc. What I don't quite understand is why many editors, when there is only a single citation of a work, object to having a two-step, indirect link, and want the footnote to link directly to the full reference. There was a prior discussion where it was strenuously (and I think seriously) maintained that it was waaaaaay too much trouble for a reader to have to click twice to get to the bibliographic details. So who is most perverse: other editors for thinking that is a serious concern? Or me for thinking it is not? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Two columns in footnote list

This edit seems to have removed the option, but it's still available in Template:Reflist#Columns. Is it now policy (I'm thinking of this complaint, which in fact uses different syntax) or something not rendering as intended? The most probable explanation, of course, is that I have missed something—apologies if so. --Old Moonraker (talk) 12:45, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Just me forgetting that {{tl}} does not show extended syntax as {{tlx}} does. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

That was quick—thanks.--Old Moonraker (talk) 13:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Universal footnotes?

I know it's possible to copy the footnote citation from one article to another, but I'm wondering if there are there any plans for Wikipedia to code footnotes so that one wouldn't need to create the citation anew? -- kosboot (talk) 11:50, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not aware of any such plans. This can be done currently, with caveats.

• You can create a template; see Category:Specific-source templates
• You can use a bot-filled template which creates a subtemplate that can be reused.

One of the problems is that these cannot be used across articles that use different citation styles. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:12, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Didn't know about this - thanks! -- kosboot (talk) 13:07, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Resize references?

How does one change/reduce the font size of citations using the Reflist template? I've been struggling to find the right markup! Thanks. -- Wikipedical (talk) 23:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You don't. They're standardised across Wikipedia; some people hold that they're already too small. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

See Template:Reflist#Font size. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

{{Refbegin}} does a small reduction. Is that what you are looking for? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:26, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Maybe the OP should make sure to uncheck Prerences > Gadgets > Appearance > Disable smaller font sizes of elements such as Infoboxes, Navboxes and Reference lists. EEng (talk) 19:41, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

{{reflist}} should not be nested inside {{refbegin}}/{{refend}}, because you get double reduction of font size, and it becomes very difficult to read. Here's the HTML:

<div class="refbegin">
<div class="reflist">
<ol class="references">
<li>...</li>
...
</ol>
</div>
</div>

and here's the CSS for that:

ol.references,
div.reflist,
div.refbegin {
  font-size: 90%;
}
div.reflist ol.references {
  font-size: 100%;
}

See for example this revision of Drumclog railway station. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:15, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Multiple references to the same source

When a particular source is used just once in an article, you are guaranteed to be able to get back to the referenced sentence after viewing the source. When there are multiple uses of the source you have to work out whether the link you followed was from the 1st or 2nd, etc. use of that source.

For example at British National Corpus the first sentence has three supporting sources, ^[1], ^[2] and ^[3], Clicking on the ^[1] takes you to the references section where you can see it is Burnard and Ashton (1998), you can then follow the ^ link get back to the first sentence. Having clicking the ^[2] you have to choose from ^{a b c} to get back to where you were, in this case it's not rocket science to work out that the first sentence will be link ^a.

As it gets further down the article though it gets harder to work out. For example in the Spoken discourse under represented section, the first sentence is marked as being verified by source 6. Clicking the ^[6] you are taken to the references section where you learn the reference is Burnard (2002). After reading that you have to chose from ^{a b c d e f g} to get you back to the section you were reading. If you have read the entire article to this point and been noting each source you could possibly work out that it is link ^f you want. If you haven't read the entire article to this point and/or haven't been noting each source, then you are left with blind guessing. We must be able to do better than that! The only two solutions I can think of off the top of my head are either to include the usage letter in the inline reference,

"The proportion of written to spoken material in the BNC is 10:1.^[6a]", or

"The proportion of written to spoken material in the BNC is 10:1.^[6(a)]"

Which might get confusing if people are expecting to find source 6a but end up at source 6. The other alternative is to number the citations not the sources, so the references would either have lots of duplicates (a waste of space, potentially confusing and potentially making it seem like the sourcing is exagerated), or there would be several numbers for some sources, eg.

1. 17. Brown (2000)

3. 6. Schmidt (2003)

4. 7. 14. 15. Smith (2008)

5. Jones (1998)

8. 9. 10. 12. 13. White (2010)

11. Brown (2009)

16. 21. Jackson (2012)

Which is bad and horrible in several ways.

Apologies if this has been discussed previously (I've looked but not found anything relevant) or if this is the wrong place. Thryduulf (talk) 21:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

There's not much we can do about this, it's mostly built in to mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php; a certain amount of customisation is possible (see Help:Cite messages) but this does not extend to altering ^[6] to either ^[6a] or ^[6(a)], so a change would need to go through bugzilla: --Redrose64 (talk) 21:47, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Nothing will happen on Bugzilla without a consensus here that it's desired. Where do you suggest the best place to have that discussion is? Thryduulf (talk) 22:27, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

It ought to be Help talk:Cite messages because that's where the talk pages of the relevant system messages (such as MediaWiki:Cite reference link) redirect; but that page has only eight watchers, myself included. You could post to WP:VPT, where I notice that there is an ongoing discussion related to cite.php. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:41, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, discussion now started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Multiple references to the same source and advertised on the help talk page (and elsewhere).Thryduulf (talk) 00:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

On IE, after clicking on the superscript link to get to the note, you can then click the browser "back" button to return to where you were in the article. EEng (talk) 00:20, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

The discussion continued for some time on the thread linked above (which is now archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 113#Multiple references to the same source). In that it is explained why the "back button" option is not a universal solution. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:10, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Later thought

Under the right circumstances (translation: used to work for me but I've somehow disabled it recently) when you click on an inline not number the browser jumps to that note and highlights it in color. Well, why don't we also highlight (or underline, or boldface) the backlink that takes you back where you came from? EEng (talk) 23:24, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

As already noted, the above discussion continued at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 113#Multiple references to the same source. In that, you will find that your idea was suggested, and was also shown to be unfeasible: please see in particular my comments of 15:29, 16 June 2013 and 22:07, 16 June 2013 (first bullet). --Redrose64 (talk) 07:18, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Unbracketed footnotes

Are unbracketed footnotes available? Just a thought. Bracketed footnotes clutter text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fluous (talk • contribs) 20:29, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

If they're in the text, they're not footnotes but parenthetical referencing (as seen at Actuary), which are supposed to be bracketed to make it clear that they are not part of the running prose. True footnotes are not bracketed - see for example NBR 224 and 420 Classes#Notes. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that Fluous may have been asking about a way to remove the square brackets from the little blue numbers, which happen to be called WP:Footnotes here. That would produce ¹² at the end of a sentence rather than ^[12].

I believe that this would require fairly serious work either with CSS changes or Javascript. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:25, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Documented at Help:Reference display customization. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:40, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

It's easy to remove the square brackets for the whole site, all we need to do is to take the innermost pair (of three) out of MediaWiki:Cite reference link. It's possible for an individual user, using CSS (as stated by Gadget850 - it's the bit described as "Hide the brackets for the inline cite"); somewhat less easy to do for one specific page. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Can we make a formal proposal somehow to remove them for the English Wikipedia? Where could we take this? It's already been done for the French version (eg fr:Guerre_de_Trente_Ans). Just seems simpler, as we don't have brackets in anything else we read. Wikidea 12:00, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

The French haven't actually removed the two square brackets, they've hidden them. It may look simpler from the outside, but is more complicated on the inside. Here is fr:MediaWiki:Cite reference link in full:

<sup id="$1" class="reference"><span class="cite_crochet"><nowiki>[</nowiki></span>$3<span class="cite_crochet"><nowiki>]</nowiki></span></sup>

whereas ours is:

<sup id="$1" class="reference"><span><nowiki>[</nowiki></span>$3<span><nowiki>]</nowiki></span></sup>

What the French have done is apply class="cite_crochet" to the two <span>...</span> elements. On its own, this does nothing; but by also defining that class as display:none; it hides the square brackets, and permits people who want to see them to use

span.cite_crochet { display: inline; }

which will reveal them. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:59, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, "the French" also put cites after before [corrected -- see below] punctuation e.g.

Il a affirmé posséder une photo du Cardinal Richelieu, jouer au badminton²².

which looks absolutely awful, so go figure. I have always thought that the bracketing made the superscripts a bit more visually intrusive than they need to be, but it's not as easy as just removing the brackets. (In coding the examples below, I faked <ref> using <sup>.)

• A little experiment shows that the Fr implementation runs two adjacent refs hard against each other, so that ref 1 followed by ref 2 is indistinguishable from ref 12 i.e. blah blah^[1][2] becomes blah blah¹². So some kind of separator is still needed, though it need not take the form of something on both sides of the number, as the brackets are.

• Someone will object re potential confusion when a cite is added to a math expression, but I think that works out OK if the usual templates etc. for math are used correctly.
• template:rp, for indicating page #s within the cited source, is little-used, but where it make sense I love it:

There is no record of this.^[5]

(The page1 parameter of template:r operates similarly.)

So something needs to be done to keep all these numerals from running together. Here's a zoo of possibilities:
blah blah   Conventional ref syntax
blah blah^[1][2]   Simulated using <sup> (as are the remaining examples below) to show spacing is same
blah blah^⋅1⋅2    Precede each number with & #x22C5;
blah blah^·1·2    Precede each number with & #x00B7;
blah blah^•1•2    Precede each number with & #x2022;2
blah blah ^{1 2}    Precede each number with a plain everyday space
blah blah^1 2    Precede each number with {{thinsp}}
blah blah^′1′2    Precede each number with & #x2032;

What I meant by "visually intrusive" earlier is primarily the horizontal gap in the text introduced by the footnote numbers. The last example above is surprisingly compact in that regard, and might be a good choice.

However, I have no illusions about getting this changed as the default -- the resistance would be fierce, and a serious problem would be that piles of documentation / help pages would become obsolete. But it's something I've thought about on and off so I thought this would be a good opportunity to get it off my chest. EEng (talk) 23:08, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

When you put '"the French" also put cites after punctuation', I'm assuming that you meant '"the French" also put cites before punctuation'. It's us that puts them after (I don't doubt that the German, Spanish, etc. Wikipedias also have their own conventions); but WP:REFPUNC is specific to the English Wikipedia and does not apply to any other Wikipedia.

Anyway: you can test out some of your suggestions by adding some CSS to Special:MyPage/common.css; this will alter the appearance for you, but nobody else. To suppress the square brackets, use

sup.reference span {
  display: none;
}

which will give almost exactly the same effect as the French style (I say almost, because it won't move the refs before the punctuation). To add the • • character before the numbers (inside the superscript but outside the link, also outside the square brackets if you didn't suppress them), use

sup.reference a:before {
  content: '\002022';
}

the second one may be altered to · · (or any other character string) by amending the '\002022' to '\0000B7' etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 07:50, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm not really interested in just changing it for myself, but improving the default for all readers (though as mentioned I doubt such a proposal could get consensus). But I did try it out. I dunno. It looks kind of funny without the brackets, probably because of the unfamiliarity of it. Well, back to editing. Thanks again. EEng (talk) 14:53, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

line breaks occurring in IE for refnotes

The endnote numbers are breaking lines (even though flush to other characters, no space) in IE. Look at Fluorine for some examples.

Can someone who has a bugzilla account please enter this into the system? If there is something we can do to fix this we should. IE is a substantial portion of users and it displays lots of other websites just fine. (If impossible, fine...but we should check what we can do on our end to display well in the default browser that most non-techie types use. I asked at Village Pump, but got brushed off.)

71.127.137.171 (talk) 23:24, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Very bad page. It needs urgent modifications

This page (Cite errors) is not ergonomic. It is an example of bad explanations. It is made only for the advanced persons but the advanced don't need help.

Somebody who have better skills on explanations has to explain again. It looks like the explanations of an ill person. Put a beginner to read and see the results !79.112.43.28 (talk) 08:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Undoubtedly there are problems with this page. But where should we start? How could explanations be improved? You need to provide examples. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:24, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Can ref group and ref name be combined? How?

First, is ref group restricted like ref name (if quotes are not used only letters and numbers -- no spaces)?

Second, is there a way to use ref name within a ref group, for example when the same explanatory note needs to be repeated? <ref group=foo|ref name=dolor> doesn't seem to work. --Lineagegeek (talk) 17:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

@Lineagegeek: After a quick test, embedded spaces in the group name don't work at all. Best stick to something simple, since the group name is visible to readers: note or nb, perhaps.

For your second point, here's an example of a note being used twice:

Text text text<ref name=foo group=note>Reference text</ref> More text text text<ref name=foo group=note/>
{{reflist|group=note}}

Text text text More text text text

-- John of Reading (talk) 18:05, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't think of <ref name=foo> as a ref name: it's a <ref> tag, with a name=foo attribute. Similarly, <ref group=foo> is not a ref group but a <ref> tag with a group=foo attribute. I believe that the foo in constructs like name=foo and group=foo follow the normal rules for HTML attribute values: that is, they should be quoted unless they contain only letters, digits, periods and the hyphen-minus. A space outside quotes is always the delimiter between attributes - pipes are not used for this purpose. So, <ref name=foobar> is valid, as are <ref name="foobar"> and <ref name="foo bar">, but if you use <ref name=foo bar> it's taken as if there were two separate attributes: name=foo and bar. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Policy or guideline?

Someone keeps using <ref name=3> and the like in articles and ignores requests not to do so. Do we just have to change it and hope it sticks or can a warning be left on their talk page or what? Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Carolmooredc (talk • contribs) 06:54, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Please give examples of articles where this is being done. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:48, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, missed your response. I just found another example and this time I cannot even find the reference info in the whole html text when I click on edit. Yet it does appear in the references section. The editors have not responded to my requests on numbering, so I don't expect they'll explain what happened to reference text in edit screen either. I'm going to just add the actual text and maybe that will get an explanation, but probably just a revert with non-explanative edit summary. Thanks. User:Carolmooredc talk 20:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, you mean that they have added the ref <ref name=":0" /> - that's simply the reuse of an existing ref which happens to be named ":0" and is not normally a problem (see WP:NAMEDREFS). Ref names do not have to be meaningful, just unique. To find out why that ref name was used, we need to find the edit where the original ref (that is being reused) was added: it was this one; notice that it was a VisualEditor edit - ref names consisting of a colon followed by an integer are something of a giveaway for VE, see e.g. Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback/Archive 2013 9#Refnames with VE?. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:29, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying question: What you called WP:NAMEDREFS is the section "Footnotes: using a source more than once" which reads: Names for footnotes and groups must follow these rules:...Names may not be purely numeric... So it sounds like it was verboten at some point.

If it needs changing I think this needs to be a community decision because it's extremely frustrating to have to figure out what is going on even for editors of 7 years, not to mention newbies. I also wonder if people will just go and try to repeat using a number, not noticing if it's gone or what. Just too high tech.

Thinking about it, this page is a help page for a guideline. Therefore I assume it is guideline too. Will just check with citation page. User:Carolmooredc talk 16:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Ah, but it's not purely numeric. <ref name="0" /> is purely numeric, so would indeed be invalid, but this is <ref name=":0" /> - the colon is part of the ref name. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:44, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Names cannot be purely numeric because of technical issues. They don't work. It is not a policy or a guideline. They just don't work; see Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref numeric key. DrKiernan (talk) 08:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

That a colon is not a number is a technicality. The point is ref names are supposed to help make editing easier, not so frustrating. User:Carolmooredc talk 17:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

What is a good 'refname'?

It appears that the concern raised here regarding 'refnames' (as in "<ref> name= xxxx>") is not really about numeric vs. non-numeric names, but more generally: what is a good 'refname'?

There do not seem to be any policies touching on this, but some guidance seem needed. This question is informed by the exactly analogous question of naming variables in programming. Several decades of discussion and experience there have converged on "meaningful" as the best criterion.

In regard of references I suggest that the most meaningful name for a ref tag is along the lines of a "short citation" (e.g.: "Smith 1976"), plus any specific location such as page number. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:50, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It is like choosing the name for a variable in a computer program; but a better analogy would be choosing the identifier for a named constant in a computer program. But the vast majority of Wikipedia editors are not programmers, many don't understand why some refs are named and others not, or that ref names, when used, need to be unique. Some believe that all refs must be named, or that names should be comprehensive (I've seen some strange ones in the past). I often see people adding a ref to an article, but using the same name as a completely different ref that is already in the same article. They don't notice that in the reflist the content of one of them simply does not show.

For books I use author's surname, year (if the author alone would be ambiguous) and page, but unspaced so that they are not mistaken for the visible text of the ref. So for example <ref name=Smith2013p12>Smith (2013), p. 12</ref> For online sources I look for unique features in the URL, such as the website and a document number - see two that I did yesterday: BBC25018895 - BBC is obviously the work/publisher/website, 25018895 is the last part of the URL and is probably unique within http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/; and MEN6331800 - MEN is the initials of Manchester Evening News, the newspaper/website; 6331800 is again the last part of the URL. Notice that I do not use quotes: these are unnecessary if there are no spaces, and the only characters used are letters, digits, the hyphen-minus and period.

But I diversify. The problem that started this section was not about hand-crafted refnames where almost anything goes. It concerned a refname that I demonstrated had originated with VisualEditor (VE) where users are not given the means for choosing a ref name. What happens is that the user wants to insert a ref, but not a new one - one that already exists in the article. They select from a list of existing refs, and if that already has a name, all well and good; but if it doesn't, VE makes up its own, and the user has no control over it. VE rules for choosing new ref names are simple - start with name=":0" and if that is in use, try name=":1" name=":2" etc. until an unused name is found. If we wish VE to allocate more meaningful names, we need to ask the VE developers directly, initially at WP:VE/F but later at bugzilla:, since no discussion/guideline/policy on any other page is going to change anything that VE does. It's the same for other reference-generating tools. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:31, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I concur entirely. (One variation: for newspapers I find abbreviated name + date to be most useful.)

The fundamental issue here is that nearly all editors do not understand the need for identifiers to be meaningful, and not just to them, but to other editors. There needs to be guidance about this, for which this Help page is appropriate.

That VE is part of the problem — well, it would be nice if VE could become a shining example of how to do it better, but consideration of how well the VE team has taken feedback from the rest of the community leaves me under-motivated to explain it to them. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:08, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

There's an open request for improvements to the general ref naming scheme in VisualEditor. Unfortunately, there are some significant restrictions, including the requirement that the naming scheme work in Wikipedias that do not use the English alphabet. If you've got ideas, then you can post them at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Eventually, I hope that people using VisualEditor will be able to manually provide ref names according to whatever scheme they believe is sensible for the article, but there will always be a purpose to having an automatic system as a backup in case people don't choose to provide a sensible one manually. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:55, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

"People", and I suspect especially those for which VE is supposed to be an easier, friendlier alternative, are not going to be manually overriding the automatic generation of refnames; that contradicts the rationale for VE. Your automatic system is as non-sensible as any people-generated scheme I have seen; it's sole arguable benefit is shielding "people" from the details of refnames. It is not difficult to think of a better system, but I leave that as a trivial exercise for the hyper-intelligent. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:31, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Refnames are visible in VisualEditor when you are re-using citations (see this screenshot), so there is value in having them be human-readable for all editors, not just people using the wikitext editor.

I agree that it is not difficult to think of a system that is more convenient for people writing in English, but the question is actually whether you can suggest a system that is independent of the editor's language—e.g., one that works equally well for English, Arabic, Javanese, and Chinese. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 22:40, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

So you made refnames less convenient in English (and other languages based on Latin or Greek characters) because you couldn't figure out how to do them in Arabic and Chinese? That is pretty lame. Alternately, since you can't devise a system that is language independent perhaps you should just abandon the effort. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

---

Sorry, missed this discussion earlier and it would help to give more examples of good ones - and bad ones (like <ref name=:01>). Your examples above are good. Carolmooredc (talk) 20:48, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It is like embedding ib in footnotes, the problem is that many editors do not think of the page they are editing as dynamic but still think in terms of paper. To people in that mindset it is obvious that the best names to use reflect the numbering of the footnotes as they appear when they see the output under "show preview" -- forgetting that in the future paragraph may be expanded with additional citation or moved about.

"There needs to be guidance about this, for which this Help page is appropriate". I do not think this is the appropriate place for such guidance. Although examples on this page should use meaningful names, guidance should be in WP:CITE otherwise we end up with the problem this page had before it became a help page, with guidance (sometimes contradictory) spread over two pages.

-- PBS (talk) 08:59, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

I beg to differ. "Footnotes" (the topic of this page) is inherently the use of <ref> tags, including named refs. And as the use of named refs requires a name, guidance should be here. If there is a problem with duplicate guidance — e.g., at WP:CITE — I think we should look at why it is duplicated there. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:51, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This is not a guideline it is a how to manual. How to add a name is an instruction. What that name ought to be is guidance. The consensus was when this was converted from a guideline into a help page was that this should say how and CITE should say why.

I added some guidance on this to WP:CITE, some of it stuck some of it was removed. See what you think -- PBS (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I see. Well, this separation of how and what is a little unfortunate, as I doubt that people read both together. I think WP:CITE ought to have a slightly stronger statement that "author+date" is strongly recommended. And even if this page does not fully explain why "author+date" makes a better refname (though a small overlap shouldn't be a problem), that should be used in the example. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:47, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

saludos!!!!! (Greetings)

Porque ase meses que no modifican Nada de esto??? Ba de parte de Gloria roman Macias ...por y para Gloria hernandez y familia ...Alfredo Roman Ruiz y Aurelia Macias Fernandez ...God bless Gloriaromanmaciashernandez (talk) 16:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC) [Google translation (Spanish assumed): Because ase months None of this does not change?? Ba from Gloria ... by roman Macias and Gloria Hernandez and Alfredo Roman family ... and Aurelia Macias Ruiz Fernandez] (translation added by — Makyen (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC))

@Gloriaromanmaciashernandez: From the Google translation it appears that you may have posted this on the wrong talk page. Did you intend for it to also be on Palacio de Bellas Artes where your other post was?

While it has been a long time since I studied Spanish, I believe the first sentence is better translated as "Why has there been no change in months?" However, that is just a guess. I am at a loss as to what the second sentence is really intended to communicate.

Please keep in mind that this is the English Wikipedia. While we desire to be helpful, English is the primary language here. Given that we will often need to use automatic translation if the information is not in English, please make sure that your sentences are clear, complete and not abbreviated. — Makyen (talk) 21:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

These look like pretty typical spelling errors from someone who speaks Spanish but never really learned to write it. "Ase" is "hace", "ba" is "va". So a reasonable translation is probably, "Why hasn't any of this been changed for months? It goes from Gloria M to Gloria H and family to Alfredo R and Aurelia F".

I have no idea whether this is a complaint about an article, about a request to change her username, or something outside the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Adding reference names

I take issue with the statement "You may optionally provide names even when the name is not required.". This adds unnecessary text for editors to wade through when editing an article, increases storage requirements unnecessarily, and is just bad practice. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but I'm not easily finding the discussion. I have found discussions that concluded that named references should not be added to articles that didn't already use them. (here and here); this should be made clear in this text, as well.—D'Ranged 1 ^talk 23:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Multiple references in a single footnote?

Anyone aware of articles that include multiple references within the same footnote, or any general consensus on doing so? In Featured or Good articles? --Ronz (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

See WP:BUNDLING. I don't think this is used a lot. --  Gadget850 ^talk 20:06, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Much appreciated.

Looks like it works best where the footnotes are separate from the references (eg WP:SRF). --Ronz (talk) 20:28, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

It does. This is pretty common in humanities articles, less so in sciencey ones. FAC reviewers may complain if this is not done and there are many uncombined multiple refs. It is much easier if you don't use citation templates, just the basic < ref></ref>. Then you can just put normal punctuation in. For FAs doing this, see most by my alter ego, User:Johnbod, plus many other humanities FAs. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 10:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

  "Bundling" can be done several ways, about which WP:BUNDLING is unclear. Big difference whether it is full or short citations being bundled. Having multiple full citations in a footnote is so crowded that editors seem to instinctively put them into a list format, which leads to the not uncommon clunkiness of small bundles (lists) of full references scattered throughout the notes section. So (as Ronz said) best done with the so-called "shortened footnotes". But these footnotes (or just notes) are shortened only because they are using a short citation (e.g.: Smith, 2001) instead of the full reference. That all this is a little confusing is due to our general confusion of concepts and terms.

  As to the original question re articles with "multiple references within the same footnote", see: Siletzia (GA), Seattle Fault (GA), Earthquake prediction, Chuckanut Formation (these are all scientific), Ambrose Channel pilot cable (technical). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Visual Editor

VE uses a whole different way to include references and it can be confusing. See Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback#Missing reflist. --  Gadget850 ^talk 12:00, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Indicate the span that the citation applies to

You know how with Template:Citation needed span, you can indicate the specific span that you intend the {cn} to apply to? For example, as done here? Is there a way to do that with ref citations as well? If so, give me a link to the info? If not, discuss whether this should be created? Thanks, Quercus solaris (talk) 23:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Since the citation template will include an =, you need to specify the first unnamned parameter as 1=:

Markup	Renders as
{{Citation needed span|1={{cite book |title=Title}}|date=July 2014}}	Title.

--  Gadget850 ^talk 23:16, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that what Quercus solaris is asking for was discussed quite recently at VPT. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Fascinating (re "quite recently at VPT"). Thanks so much for the link. The initial request there is exactly the same concept as I had in mind (whatever the implementation instance might end up as). I skimmed that discussion (the first half of it, anyway). Obviously implementations are technically feasible, given that Template:Citation needed span already implements the same concept for {cn}. My suspicion is that maybe 3 or 5 or 8 years from now it will have been implemented as a simple template call, just as Template:Citation needed span already has been. I guess I'll just wait till then. People point out "but later editors can carelessly break the relationship between ref and supported anchor text." But that argument is pointless, because that already happens now, anytime anyone edits anchor text with a ref citation near it. Anyway, thanks so much for the link, User:Redrose64. I'm glad I asked here. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:45, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Quercus solaris, I'm the editor who started that WP:VPT thread. In the last third of the thread, User:Makyen produced something that suits my needs. If you decide to give it a try, I'd be very interested in hearing how you get on. I think Makyen will help you to get started if anything's not clear about its use.

Example (hover your mouse pointer under the footnote marker):

At any given time, about half of all patients with malignant cancer are experiencing pain, and more than a third of those (and two thirds of all patients with advanced cancer) experience pain of such intensity that it adversely affects their sleep, mood, social relations and activities of daily living.   

References

--Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Missing reference markup will no longer show an error

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T69700
Resolved

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T17712

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T69847

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T70324
Declined

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T70293

With the deployment of 1.24wmf12 on Jul 10, missing reference markup will no longer show an error; the reference list will show below the content.[3] --  Gadget850 ^talk 09:30, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

...without adding a category, so there's no way to find and fix the affected pages. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:40, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be a good way to track this. Follow-on editors are going to be confused, it will not add a heading and it will often show in the wrong place. --  Gadget850 ^talk 09:54, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

This definitely needs a hidden maintenance category. Can we persuade the developers to add one? If not, individual wikis are going to have to program bots to make lists of these things, and someone is going to have to explain this odd situation on VPT every three months, which is non-ideal. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:16, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I believe I misinterpreted the deployment. Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Tech News: 2014-28 shows this as "Future software changes" not 1.24wmf12. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:57, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Based on testing on test.wikipedia.org, test2.wikipedia.org, and MediaWiki something, presumably this change, is active on those sites to display references if there is no <references />. A page with a missing references section does show the references at the end of the page. Those sites are running 1.24wmf12.

However it does not show references in a preview of a section edit. I understood the reason that 129932 was abandoned was that this change would show references in section previews. — Makyen (talk) 14:56, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

T69700

--  Gadget850 ^talk 23:27, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Now deployed. The automatic reference list is generated when {{reflist}} or <references /> is missing. The automatic reference list is not generated when there is a group; 'MediaWiki:Cite error group refs without references' is still triggered and an error shows. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:40, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I can confirm this. I just did a null edit on Wilderness Territory, which was in Category:Pages with missing references list and was showing the red error message, and now it has a references list at the bottom, with no header. It does not have any sort of tracking category that shows that it still has a problem.

This new feature also prevents erroneous edits like this one and this one from generating an error message or a category, leaving articles in bizarre states with no maintenance alert for gnomes. This problem really needs its maintenance category restored. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Our old friend T23798 is back to bite us. --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:44, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Filed a report on this. This was not implemented for reference lists for groups. And upon consideration, articles with multiple reference lists are going to behave badly— need to test that. Issue are starting to be reported on the Help Desk, so I made an announcement on VPT. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:13, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

67700 has been resolved. I presume it is running on the test wiki (It is not listed in the 1.24wmf13 change list and is listed on Tech News as a future software change). On the test wiki I added a category,[4] but have not been able to put a test page into it. --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:27, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

Talk page problem

On talk pages which use references, and many do, all references now appear at the bottom. This is especially problematic because wiki custom is that new messages go to the bottom, and now the last message will often have confusing hanging references below it. At first look it will always appear, especially to people who do not know what is happening, that they should relate the references with whatever the latest talk message is.

Perhaps for talk pages, could there be automatic sectioning-off of the references? I have no comment about whether that would be best in all cases. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:36, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

We no longer have namespace control over this. --  Gadget850 ^talk 17:04, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

We have control to the extent of adding "Talk references" sections just to give these phantoms a home. (Though it occurs to me there has to be an explicit "reflist" or such so these phantoms don't go to roost on any subsequent sections.) Seems to me these changes were not adequately thought out. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:42, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that separate refs sections are a good idea. If there's one for the whole page, it needs to go after the section(s) that have the <ref>...</ref>s in them; this implies placing it at the bottom, with the inconvenience of moving it whenever a new section is created in the approved manner which itself will take us back to square one if that new section has <ref>...</ref>s. Then, the section with the <ref>...</ref>s might get archived, and since the section with the {{reflist}} probably won't be datestamped, the archive bot will leave it alone. I think that it's better to put the {{reflist}} in the same section(s) that have the <ref>...</ref>s, like this. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:06, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

That is one of the reasons {{reflist-talk}} was developed. And yes you need an explicit {{reflist}} or variant to properly place the list which then disables the auto reflist.

If those of us who are knowledgeable about how Cite works and is implemented here were consulted, then we might have had a simpler implementation. Frankly, we could have added the reference list markup by use of MediaWiki:Cite error refs without references with a bit of a to kludge to close the error class. --  Gadget850 ^talk 01:00, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Looks like this will be deployed with 1.24wmf14. --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't be shy: having to explicitly add ref sections in Talk is a bad idea. But this new "feature" is a terrible idea. Kind of makes me wonder if more overview is needed. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can open a report on Bugzilla. Then a developer comes round and decides to fix something, but the desired fix is ill defined. I have no idea how T15127 "Page number attribute for <ref> tags" would be implemented. --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:32, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

It appears that the styling of this automatic reflist has changed. It used to be a numbered list with reduced font size (90%?) - now it is a bulleted list with 100% font size. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:28, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

I am not seeing this; User:Gadget850/1. Example? --  Gadget850 ^talk 21:56, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

See e.g. this page. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:17, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Or this one. --Redrose64 (talk) 08:50, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Reported as T70293 - Cite: Markup before automatic reference list displays list style as unordered. See User:Gadget850/3 --  Gadget850 ^talk 12:02, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

T70324 - Cite: Add namespace detection for automatically generated reference list --  Gadget850 ^talk 15:13, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

AfD problem

If <ref>...</ref>s are used in an AfD discussion, without a reflist explicitly defined, the references all float to the bottom of the log page where the individual discussions are all transcluded: (example). The refs from all discussions get listed together, unnumbered, and appear to be associated with the discussion that happens to appear last on the page. In one case, with a large number of refs, I attempted to address the issue by creating a reflist with a group. But this meant editing another editor's comments, and in any case this seems to be an uphill struggle. – Wdchk (talk) 06:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Wdchk: It's not specific to AfD - it can happen on any discussion page. There are two ways around it: either remove the <ref>...</ref> to leave the content of the ref exposed in the text (which will interrupt the flow), or add a <references />, {{reflist}} or {{reflist-talk}} to the thread. Any one of these three will display all refs not previously displayed, so you need one per thread that contains refs; it needs to be after the last <ref>...</ref> of the thread, otherwise subsequent refs will drop into the reflist of the next thread. No "group" parameters are needed, and in fact, these will complicate matters because people won't understand the significance. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Thanks for the clarification that groups should not be necessary, if each individual discussion has its own {{reflist}}. Yes, I did have a concern that using groups was over-complicated. The issue I still see though, is this: suppose discussion A has refs and (correctly) a reflist at the end, while discussion B has refs but no reflist. Editors working on the discussion B page currently see no error. However, when those two discussions get transcluded onto the same log page, the refs for discussion B presumably end up in discussion A's list (or at the end of the log page, depending on the relative order of the transcluded pages). Having the software silently attempt to fix the user error on discussion B's page really has just hidden the error by the time the page is transcluded. (I realize that most people here probably know this already, I just wanted to log the example.) – Wdchk (talk) 12:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Order of explanatory notes / citations

Hello,

I haven't seen anything about the order of explanatory notes and citations in the body of an article.

• [nb 5][53]

vs

• [53][nb 5]

It's been my practice to use the second approach, but maybe that's my and some other's personal preference.

Is there a guideline about this?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 03:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. Personally I would put the ref first if it supports the prior text but not the note, and last if it supports both text and note. If the ref supports the note only, it ought to go inside the note, but there are problems here, mainly connected with the MediaWiki software being unable to handle nested <ref>...</ref> tag pairs. You don't say which article this is, nor which of several available systems is used to make the but I'm guessing that it's not {{efn}} because that gives lowercase letters like . If the article did use {{efn}}, and the ref supports only the note, you can nest them like this: {{efn|This is disputed by some critics.<ref>Source that shows what the critics say</ref>}}. See here for an example of a note ("the weight in working order") containing a ref, although that uses {{sfn}} instead of <ref>...</ref>.--Redrose64 (talk) 08:13, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64, I didn't know that there was so much to this (number of templates to form an explanatory note, etc.), wow! The article in question is Einar Jolin, and the notation type is {{#tag:ref ..}} {{efn}}.--CaroleHenson (talk) 13:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@CaroleHenson: To make a ping that works, the target's user page, here User:Redrose64, has to be added in the same edit as your signature. More at Wikipedia:Notifications#Technical details. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:07, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, there are four {{efn}} in Einar Jolin, and they are shown as Besides the three with refs after the note indicator itself, all four of these contain one or more references in <ref>...</ref> which all seem to be displaying fine at Einar Jolin#Notes. Which one is giving trouble? --Redrose64 (talk) 14:24, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Redrose64.

There wasn't a problem with any of them. I've always placed explanatory notes after citations - and I don't remember seeing it the other way around. So, I was just looking for clarification. Sounds like we're good! Much appreciated!--CaroleHenson (talk) 14:36, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Footnotes ≠ notes

I'm not sure where to start the ball rolling on this issue, but this seems like the best place to begin. We really need to start using the general term "note" instead of the far more specific "footnote" when we actually mean the former.

Wikipedia has never had footnotes. There has only been endnotes (no traditional page structure). I wouldn't be a stickler for a brand of formality like this if it wasn't for the fact that "footnote" has become more or less synonymous with the actual meaning of "note". But really only on Wikipedia. The results are Wikpedia-exclusive examples of sub-sections with comments that can be either "Footnotes" or "Notes" that are sorted under "References" (Zog I of Albania#References), "Bibliography" (Passenger pigeon#Bibliography), "Notes and references" (John Plagis#Notes and references), "Notes, references and sources" (Jules Massenet#Notes, references and sources, etc.

And there's the completely fictitious separation of definitions of the two terms of "commentary notes" and "reference notes" respectively. Which is which seems quite unpredictable, though: (1998 FA Charity Shield#Notes, Cyclura nubila#Footnotes, Aston Villa F.C.#Footnotes. Sometimes it's even in the same article: Nagato-class battleship#Footnotes.

Variation per se is not a propblem. I'm not singling out the examples as bad eggs or anything. The unpredictable and clearly erroneous definitions are problems, though. Nothing will likely ever be perfectly standardized on Wikipedia, but can we please at least rewrite our official instructions something along this example? The current solution could be summarized as "we know they're not footnotes, but we'll consistently refer to them as footnotes anyway". Which is pretty much saying that Wikipedians can define the meaning of terms that we didn't invent and that are still used elsewhere. It's a damned odd solution and quite likely a major source of much of the confusion we have now.

So can we try to adhere to what stuff actually means for non-Wikipedians and fix this once and for all?

Peter ^Isotalo 01:33, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Per the lead of this article: "In this context, the word "Footnotes" refers to the Wikipedia-specific manner of documenting an article's sources and providing tangential information, and should not be confused with the general concept of footnotes"

Per Note (typography): "Footnotes are notes at the foot of the page while endnotes are collected under a separate heading at the end of a chapter, volume, or entire work."

This is only one of several help pages that use the terms defined here, thus any change must be a coordinated update.

I don't like the term "footnote marker", but I gave up on that battle long ago. --  Gadget850 ^talk 13:19, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I think that we can all agree that (as illustrated by Gadget) "footnotes" and "endnotes" can be distinguished, and that, as Peter says, "footnotes" are not what we have here, and the use of that term is, strictly speaking, incorrect. As such I would be inclined to reform our usage. Yet I wonder: do we tend to use "footnote" because we understand it to be the place for comments and citations linked to from the text, where ever that place is, whereas "note" is too general, and used in other ways? Will long usage eventually confirm this particular meaning, just as we still "dial" telephones despite the lack of actual dials? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:23, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree. There is only 1 page in an article, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to distinguish between footnotes and endnotes. They are footnotes because they numbered notes near the foot of the page. In web design the information at the very end is called a "footer", and that also seems like a natural adoption/adaptation of print terminology. --Margin1522 (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

(5) Footnotes: embedding references

This is pretty esoteric. I would suggest moving it to the end of the article.--Margin1522 (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

(2) Footnotes: predefined groups

I think this section could be skipped or shortened.
{{notelist}} is used in about 8000 pages, so maybe we should explain that. But the transclusion count for {{Notelist-ua}} and {{Notelist-lr}} is only 438 and 92, respectively.
I would suggest a short paragraph on predefined groups to conclude the previous "Footnotes: groups" section. Then move the markup examples for predefined groups to another page, maybe Help:Cite_link_labels. Add a cite to that page for people who want the details.--Margin1522 (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Help:Cite link labels is a very technical page and was never intended for novices, as noted in the lead notice. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

That's a point. Perhaps we could start a new Help page to give a complete description of these obscure predefined groups. I volunteer to create it, with material taken from this page. --Margin1522 (talk)

Reusing named refs with specific quotes

In an article, we have one specific statement that is subject to IP reversions despite online sources clearly stating it. We want to have a group note that uses some of the existing citations, appeanding them with short quotes drawn from the various sources, so that the fact is indisputable. These sources all are being used in the article as named refs with the citation template system. While we could add the |quote= there, that quote doesn't apply across the rest of the uses of those sources so it might be confusing later.

I think right now we can cobble together a footnote (not citation) that makes these statements clear but is there a way to reuse a named ref and add in a quote parameter? I know that the page number thing is there for other cases, but this seems to be the only special aspect considered here. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

@Masem: Use {{efn}} in conjunction with {{notelist}}, see e.g. LB&SCR A1X Class W8 Freshwater note [a]. That's got a {{sfn}} inside the note, but there is no reason why it couldn't be <ref name="something" /> --Redrose64 (talk) 16:14, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

That was my quick fix that works fine, just curious if there was a different, more integrated way. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This is the same sort of thing as with the more common request to use the same ref with different page numbers. Unfortunately making any changes at all to the code for Cite is a huge pain these days, because it has to be written once in PHP and then again in nodejs for Parsoid. Anomie⚔ 11:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

For an overview of the current methods, see Help:References and page numbers. --  Gadget850 ^talk 11:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

(1) RefToolbar 2.0b

Since this is a Help page and not a documentation page, I think it could be reorganized to help new editors get up to speed quickly and encourage them to read the whole page. I have some some suggestions, which I'll post in separate topics for discussion.

RefToolbar 2.0b is a great tool and I think everybody should know about it. I would suggest moving it to the top of the article, right after the lead. There is a terrific video on Wikipedia:RefToolbar/2.0, which we link to. But that page gets only about 20 page views per day, whereas this page gets 500. The toolbar is the easiest way to get up to speed quickly, so I think we should feature it. --Margin1522 (talk) 01:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Now I see that we already have a page called Help:Referencing for beginners, which is linked to hundreds of pages (perhaps thousands, how do you get link count?) via {{more references}}. That page has the video at the top and may be what beginners should read first. Perhaps we could mention it in the lead or hatnotes, instead of Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. --Margin1522 (talk) 07:02, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Margin1522, there used to be a link to "Transclusion count" on Special:WhatLinksHere, but it's not there at the moment. I believe several tools broke recently. Perhaps it'll be back soon. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:23, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Thanks. I hope this gets straightened out, it would be handy. – Margin1522 (talk) 05:46, 18 October 2014 (UTC)