Help talk:Cite errors/Archive 6

Coding1
I also have one question:

Can't

be replaced by ? Debresser (talk) 00:46, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * For the final point, consider a call with "cat= ", defining the "cat" parameter but leaving it empty, or a call with "cat= ", trying to pass the parameter from an outer template. The #if version of the code will see that the parameter is empty, and put the page in the default category. The second version will see that the parameter is defined, and attempt to put the page in a category with an empty name. See Help:Template. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:55, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation. But the only templates calling on Broken ref are MediaWiki templates (see User:Debresser/My_work_on_Wikipedia for a list), and they do not have this problem. These are edited only by experienced admins, so we can reasonably hope that such a thing will not happen, and make the change. Debresser (talk) 08:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)


 * The new draft namespace has just been enabled. It should display cite errors. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I updated the template from namespace detect showall to Module:Namespace detect. The new module now supports all namespaces, so we can add draft and others. See Village pump (proposals)/Archive 109. --   Gadget850talk 01:16, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Internal error messages
Just noticed that the three internal error messages were removed in September. I need to clean up- delete the Mediawiki pages, the associated help pages and broken ref. --  Gadget850talk 19:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * MediaWiki:Cite croak
 * MediaWiki:Cite error stack invalid input
 * MediaWiki:Cite error key str invalid
 * Think I got this cleaned up. --  Gadget850talk 19:40, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Categorisation of reference errors
I've spent a day and a half on the articles in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting. I have two comments on this category and the others like it:
 * All the pages outside mainspace are listed under omega. The category would be easier to work with if the different non-article namespaces were under separate sort key letters.
 * The category is going to become clogged with archived discussion pages ("Please do not edit this page") and with declined or abandoned draft pages. This makes it difficult to set a useful Backlog threshold. Could the mainspace pages be moved to a subcategory Category:Articles with incorrect ref formatting? -- John of Reading (talk) 12:33, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Re first bullet; WP:SORTKEY offers some Greek letters for use here. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * How about this sorting?


 * Talk pages should not be categorized. Let me know if you see this and give me the page. --  Gadget850talk 15:30, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If by discussion you mean Wikipedia pages such as the Village Pump or Help Desk, then I see your point. I can remove that namespace, but we will have to accept that guideline and policy pages may have undisclosed errors. --  Gadget850talk 15:56, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * (e/c) Yes, I was referring to the Wikipedia archive pages in CAT:REF.
 * Since the subheadings on category pages are always uppercase, I've added a third column to your table. WP:SORTKEY suggests iota for files; we might as well stick with that. The current omega character is from Broken ref, is that right? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I updated file to iota, and meant to use psi for Wikipedia. And yes, the omega is current use. --  Gadget850talk 16:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:03, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What about Wikipedia pages? --  Gadget850talk 18:14, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know. I suggest we keep them categorised for now. -- John of Reading (talk) 18:24, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * OK. I will do the sortkeys later this afternoon. --  Gadget850talk 18:51, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ I included labeled section transclusion markup so we can add the table to the category pages. --  Gadget850talk 20:50, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- John of Reading (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Any thoughts anyone on my second bullet point? Does anyone take any notice of the Backlog status of these categories? -- John of Reading (talk) 21:15, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi, adding in "Draft:" and "Wikipedia:" pages extends the Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting by about 200 items, and as noted above those should not be edited being they're archived. If those kinds of articles' errors need to be tracked, can they get a subpage or something instead of being among the "living" pages? - Salamurai (talk) 17:46, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I looked around for a way to do page name matching and think If pagename multi might work. Let me take a look at this. --  Gadget850talk 19:27, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this is related: for Category:Pages with missing references list every "Portal" page is showing up, where they didn't used to, which extends the list by over 6,000 items that don't need to be fixed. - Salamurai (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I've begun a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Portal guidelines. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:32, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Regarding portals, see Village pump (technical)/Archive 124. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:36, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 March 2014 on Véronique Sanson
Would you please change the link existing with my blog cyrilpolyaddicted.com in ref area : the link is broken. The good one is http://cyrilpolyaddicted.blogspot.fr/2009/04/veronique-sanson-de-michel-berger.html Hope you will agree (to) my request. Sincerely yours

CyrGilles (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Cite errors. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. It's not clear what you want to do, but was not good. If there is a problem with the article Véronique Sanson, the place to discuss it is Talk:Véronique Sanson. To request help, the left sidebar has a link Help where you will find links to various means of obtaining help. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Category:Pages with missing references list that aren't
There are about 30 pages included in Category:Pages with missing references list beginning DW to DZ, and GMA. The template they transclude,, has been edited to remove tags, and the pages no longer contain any surplus tags and no longer show an error message. Despite this, these pages still show in this category. Anyone help? Noyster  (talk),  11:13, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Changes in category links are put into the job queue, and re-cached when the server load is low; this can take hours, days or weeks. You can force an update by editing the page, even a null edit. For example, I did some minor fixes on DWCW and it is no longer in the category. --  Gadget850talk 12:33, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Cite error refs without references: role of bots
In the section Help:Cite_errors/Cite_error_refs_without_references it gives reasons why missing entries can't and shouldn't be fixed automatically. In fact, this is being fixed by both XqBot and YoBot, in most cases without leaving a problem, although it may take several weeks before either bot gets round to any particular article. However, the bots don't deal with the other most common cause of this big red error message, which is when people put in further, which would leave something usable Noyster  (talk) ,  10:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There have been proposals to instead of displaying the error message, display reflist. This can be done, but it will always be placed at the very bottom of the page, will not have a heading and will be confusing for follow on editors. You can add a heading, but if you use wikimarkup, then the edit link will open the MEdiaWik error page; if you use HTML then the section is not listed in the TOC. --  Gadget850talk 11:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 April 2014
AE 26 06 D9

1B A7 103.14.127.3 (talk) 13:34, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

If you want to suggest a change, please request this in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ". Please also obtain consensus to back up your request. - Arjayay (talk) 13:42, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: as you have not requested a change.

Yoko Ono
For some reason, the page is displaying "Cite error: A list-defined reference named "FOOTNOTEBadman199940" is not used in the content". I have been scanning the article for FOOTNOTEBadman199940 but cannot find it. Help would be appreciated from another editor or a bot. XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 03:36, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed; see my edit summary or Help:Shortened footnotes for an explanation. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:50, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you! XXSNUGGUMSXX (talk) 06:56, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * A large number of were completely misused. It accepts up to four authors' surnames, a year, and a page identifier. Many uses were being given other information - title, publisher, ISBN etc., and it occurred to me that somebody had assumed that it was a shorthand for cite book whereas it is in fact a shorthand for harvnb I've fixed up the vast majority. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:59, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Reflist error appearing when I've put the reflist template on the page.
I'm trying to edit the page for Leevi Madetoja by properly referencing the information, however since I've put both references AND the reflist template in the References section, it still displays the bug! Anyway to help?

McLennonSon (talk) 09:19, 6 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Leevi_Madetoja&diff=611797900&oldid=611797670]. When a named reference is reused, the syntax is . The reference was never closed before so the rest of the page was interpreted as part of the reference. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2014
Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) should be included in the list of species available. Citation: http://www.oldgrowthtimbers.com

Also an advantage of reclaimed redwood is that it is the only way to obtain old growth wood of this species as there is no more harvest of old growth redwood. same citation as above.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.196.62.62 (talk) 23:37, 9 June 2014‎


 * This is the wrong page for this request, I believe., did you mean to post this new text on Reclaimed lumber? – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:00, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Percent encoding issue
I'm reporting an issue, I think, in the cite extension. If someone understands the system, perhaps you would bugzilla it.

At Žydrūnas Savickas (visible at reference 23 in this permalink), the following error text occurs:
 * Cite error: The named reference http:.2F.2Fwww.giants-live.co. was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

I guess each  should be. The relevant wikitext, with line breaks added, is: ...on June 29, 2013.

...Dolina Charlotty, Poland) The last line includes an incorrect ref name which generates the above message. I'll fix that now if no interruptions occur. Johnuniq (talk) 10:54, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The error display is encoded, but otherwise spot on. "http://www.giants-live.co." is not the same as "giants-live.com". I will add a note to the help page. As noted at WP:NAMEDREFS: "Please consider keeping names simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals." --  Gadget850talk 15:08, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Nalaka Godahewa
Cite error: There are tags on this page, but the references will not show without a template (see the help page).

Probably this is a straight forward thing, but I cant sort out titled issue in the following article after adding a few new sources. Appreciate if anyone can help me here. I did check out the help page and tried several times but couldn't fix the issue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalaka_Godahewa — Preceding unsigned comment added by 126.15.198.169 (talk) 14:41, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed it - there was an unclosed HTML comment that made the rest of the article disappear. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed it - there was an unclosed HTML comment that made the rest of the article disappear. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Missing reference markup will no longer show an error
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.

Discussion at Help talk:Footnotes. --  Gadget850talk 14:10, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Need simpler cite system
Citing is too hard, and pages are unreadable in edit mode.

Articles in edit mode are unreadable because every citation looks like this



and there are multiple citations interrupting each sentence. All that gibberish should go only in a list at the bottom of the page. --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 01:03, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * This really is not the appropriate place for this discussion. But take a look at . --  Gadget850talk 01:16, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to bring up this idea at Village pump (policy). I suspect that you would not be the first to do so.


 * If you want to avoid this situation in articles that you have created, you can use in the body of the article and then list the refs at the bottom of the article. It does make it harder for editors to improve citations by editing sections, however. There are tradeoffs to everything. You could also try using the Syntax Highlighter, which you can find in Preferences -> Gadgets. – Jonesey95 (talk) 03:53, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * That method is . And a better venue might be Village pump (idea lab). --  Gadget850talk 14:12, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 August 2014
In trying to edit the page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Akins, by adding an episode Akins appeared on in 1959 on "77 Sunset Strip," (namely, the episode "Lovely Alibi"), I made a mistake in trying to add this reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxYT6uTbGA0 and thus I got an error message. Can you fix that?

JameShermanJohnson (talk) 01:05, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you were trying to do, but is not valid. Fixed. --  Gadget850talk 01:31, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 September 2014
AccraGhana Music Union

John Barnes Odonkor 41.218.231.214 (talk) 22:54, 5 September 2014 (UTC) Musicians Union of Ghana From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Musicians Union of Ghana is an umbrella group that unites all musicians in Ghana irrespective of their music genre.

Bice Osei Kuffour is the current president of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA).Cite error: The tag has too many names (see the help page). [1] He was elected on August 18 2011 in Tamale in the Northern Region. The other candidates were John Barnes Odonkor,Gyedu Blay Ambolley, John Barnes Odonkor, Nana Tuffour and John Barnes Odonkor, Willi Roi. [2]

References[edit] John Barnes Odonkor

Jump up ^ Accra"Odonkor". www.modernghana.com. Retrieved 19 August 2011. Text "Accra, Ghana" ignored (help); Text " Obour Elected MUSIGA President" ignored (help) Jump up ^ http://www.obour.com/?p=143 John Barnes Odonkor

Flag of GhanaBiography icon	This Ghanaian biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

John Barnes Odonkor John Barnes Odonkor John Barnes Odonkor John Barnes Odonkor

Categories: Ghanaian people stubsAddress IP 41.218.220.323.28Organisations based in GhanaGhanaian musicMinistry for Chieftaincy and Traditional AffairsUnited StateGhana
 * I think you have a cite error someplace but it will take a bit to figure out where it is. --  Gadget850talk 23:04, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed the cite errors in Musicians Union of Ghana. Please read Help:Referencing for beginners. --  Gadget850talk 23:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Pages with incorrect ref formatting
We have reduced Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting, in articles, to almost nothing. There are a lot in drafts, but I don't see much point in attacking those when (1) many of those errors will be corrected by the drafter, and (2) many of the drafts will never grow up and become articles. Agreed? Excellent.

We get up to 10 new ones a day in articles, and I'll keep after them until I get bored and want to try something else. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss (talk) 10:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Should Harv ref errors be put in this category, or a similar one?
There are many articles with errors in Harvard-style references, like those in this version of Zhongfeng Mingben (I have since fixed the errors).

If you do not see the red errors, you can put the following in your common.js or vector.js:

// Show sfn and harv reference errors importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js');

These Harv ref errors do not appear to have a maintenance category assigned to them. Should they be placed in the Cite Errors category, or can a new category be created?

Note that the error category should be populated only from templates that create footnote references, like, and not from citation templates like , since the former lead to broken links and the latter are not necessarily indicative of an error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There is no categorisation because the error message comes purely from a user script; such scripts are effective only at page load time, and also only for the user running the script. Categorisation needs to be on the saved version of a page, so some means of detecting the broken link would need to be built into,  etc. (eight templates in total, IIRC). But I know that regular templates cannot detect a broken link within a page (there is no equivalent to   for anchors), and I don't think that Lua-ised templates can either. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the explanation. Maybe a bot could run through all pages that use and similar templates periodically, add a maintenance category for broken links, and also periodically run through the maintenance category to remove the category from articles where the error no longer exists. Is that something that (a) sounds possible and (b) sounds useful? If so, I can propose it at Bot Requests if there is a consensus here or elsewhere in favor of it.


 * It looks like the harv/harvnb/sfn templates are used in about 50,000 articles, so that's not too many to scan periodically. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * What if we loaded the script through common.js? --  Gadget850talk 16:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)
 * But surely common.js is like any other javascript - it is executed client-side, when the page is loaded? It can create a link to a cat page, but cannot actually put the page into that cat. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 October 2014
2602:30B:8223:3BD9:2428:6759:E11:3F90 (talk) 14:52, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Not done. No information provided. --  Gadget850talk 14:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 24 October 2014
Please change "|msg=|msg=" to "|msg=".

Jackmcbarn (talk) 23:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done -- Red rose64 (talk) 23:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Template:Template reference list
Hello. I've reworded this template here (see testcases page for sample output). Okay to update main template? Sardanaphalus (talk) 13:23, 22 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the intent. Why do we need this change?
 * "At least one instance of the template or templates on this page..." Redundant since this would not be used on a template page that did not have references.
 * "...includes reference/citation tags" No. The template page where this is used includes tags. What is a citation tag?
 * "The references/citations they define are:" Why does this show even when no groups are defined?
 * --  Gadget850talk 15:12, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Sardanaphalus, your habit of rearranging code for purely cosmetic reasons - such as adding newlines where none previously existed, or removing other newlines - makes it very difficult to [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AComparePages&page1=Template%3ATemplate+reference+list&page2=Template%3ATemplate+reference+list%2Fsandbox compare existing with proposal]. I have mentioned this before, as recently as yesterday. -- Red rose64 (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Gadget850: Confusion/malfunction arose with the above because the template is used on (at least) two different types of template-related page: templates' own pages and template testcase pages. There's now an amended version of the sandbox which I hope works both ways. After some second/third thoughts, the noincludes within the template have also been removed.
 * Redrose64:
 * You really don't see anything other than "purely cosmetic reasons" for the rearranged code..?
 * Please examine the sandbox history. I have mentioned this before, as recently as Thursday.
 * Sardanaphalus (talk) 23:59, 22 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I don't. Because you have made it, as I have already said, very difficult to [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AComparePages&page1=Template%3ATemplate+reference+list&page2=Template%3ATemplate+reference+list%2Fsandbox compare existing with proposal]. Make only the necessary changes please, and don't rearrange the newlines. -- Red rose64 (talk) 12:37, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Compare Revision as of 10:09, 22 November 2014 (Reset with current main template) with Revision as of 12:28, 22 November 2014 (i.e. with the version preceding the (code layout) edit). Yes, subsequent edits were and have been made, but the code's layout wasn't changed until after the substantial/content change had been made. Improving code readability might not be "necessary", but it's surely useful/worthwhile..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2014 (UTC)


 * It looks like you are adding a conditional so this will display "References/citations occurring on this page are listed below." on a testcases subpage. I don't understand why a simple reflist would not suffice. You really need to outline the changes and the rationale when you make a proposal. --  Gadget850talk 13:50, 24 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think I may have misunderstood where/how this template is meant to be used – if I recall correctly, I was originally prompted by its use on this testcases page. I hadn't noticed that the template's documentation begins (italics added) "This template is used to show the references used in a template on the template page", so perhaps I should replace it with on that testcases page (and then on other testcases pages where I find it in use)..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Copying
I found a source on a page and it is useful to another page. But when I put the ref name their, it says it was invoked but never defined. Why does this happen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dinosaur Fan (talk • contribs)


 * The ref name must defined on the same page in order to be invoked. See more at WP:REFNAME. I copied the definition from another page in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dinosaur_size&diff=638735508&oldid=638733779]. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:35, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

One more, PrimeHunter. The source of Aquilops americanus in Dinosaur size also has this error. Dinosaur Fan (talk) 05:17, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Please learn to do it yourself. I guess you copied the code  from Aquilops to Dinosaur size, but that code only tells the software to look for the definition of "Farke, et al" somewhere else on the current page. You need to find and copy that definition. Search the source of Aquilops for "Farke, et al", for example with  in many browsers. One of the occurrences of "Farke, et al" defines it with this code which you must copy to Dinosaur size:  . PrimeHunter (talk) 05:36, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * PrimeHunter is correct. The citation is two parts: the in-text citation and the full citation; you must have both. And don't cite a source unless you've seen it for yourself: WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. --  Gadget850talk 09:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)


 * You were almost right in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dinosaur_size&diff=prev&oldid=638771479]. Each ref name should only be defined once on a page so the second time you should have kept . It's technically allowed to define a ref name more than once but only one of the definitions is used when the reference is displayed so it's very confusing if an editor later edits the unused definition and doesn't see any change in the displayed reference. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:52, 19 December 2014 (UTC)