Template talk:Citation needed span

Unnamed
Wow, that was quick! What I think would be great is making one pale pink for NPOV or copyedit text, and maybe a pale cream or beige one for unreferenced (well, they are off the top of my head...) Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
 * SCNR :) -- pne (talk) 13:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Reword?
When you mouse over, for example, this citation needed span tag, it flags This claim needs references to reliable sources from [month + year], which is misleading. Could it be reworded to read something like ''This claim needs references to reliable sources. Tagged from [month + year]''? Writegeist (talk) 06:46, 13 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's misleading. It's the same mouse-over text in Citation needed (example:) which was probably the basis for this template and for Reference necessary (example:). -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 08:17, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Really not a fan :/
I appreciate a lot of hard work went into this, but honestly? It causes more confusion than it solves for. There's absolutely no cue, from a reader perspective, that the colour has anything to do with the lack of citations, because pretty much everyone is used to the "citation needed" tag representing that on its own. My suggestion would be either a mouseover for the text itself identifying what the colouration is all about, or far-less-preferably having the citation needed mouseover indicate it. "The claim highlighted in pink needs references to reliable sources". Ironholds (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the flag [citation needed] at the end of the highlighted section makes it very clear which statement(s) need citation(s). Example:
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
 * -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:54, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. Its clear for me too. And it was the subject of two very extensive parallel TfDs which discussed its color and style as well, so I am guessing it is clear enough for others too. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 14:02, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Could you provide links to the TfDs? Thanks. User&lt;Svick&gt;.Talk; 00:46, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Templates for discussion/Log/2012 August 28 and Templates for discussion/Log/2012 August 28. -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:53, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
 * Clear to me too. Debresser (talk) 16:55, 15 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I may be in a minority here, then :). Is it impossible to have a mouseover for the entire line, then, just to make it even more clear? Ironholds (talk) 19:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi. I am thinking, yes, it is impossible because admins have that auto-inspection gadget installed and us ordinary editors have Tools/Navigation popups; both takeover mouseover event. But apart from that, apparently you understand the meaning of the highlight (in spite of not being a fan of it) and everybody else understands as well, so your solution seems to be desperately in search of a problem. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 20:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I understand it having inspected the wikisyntax. And yes, some admins have auto-inspection gadgets installed and some ordinary editors have navigation popups, and readers, who can, I assume, see this? Have neither. Our responsibility in interface design is not just to those users we know and care about. Ironholds (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with Ironholds. I just saw this being used for the first time, and had no idea what the pink highlighting was about until I looked at the wikicode and came to this template page.  I would be in favor of triggering the highlighting via a mouseover event, or getting rid of the highlighting altogether.  ‑Scottywong | soliloquize _  21:56, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Removing the highlighting altogether would remove the raison d'être for this template. Triggering the highlight with mouseover event will probably fall foul of accessability guidelines and it will reduce the visibility of sections requiring citations – which goes against the intent of the template. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:11, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi. That's true. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 13:12, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Then frankly, I'd suggest removing this template. It's highly confusing and also largely unnecessary. I would suggest that, to steal a line from Codename Lisa (thank you for choosing to recognise that discussion is still ongoing here, btw!), this template is a solution in search of a problem. Ironholds (talk) 00:41, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello, Ironholds. There is no call for taking my sentence out of its context or making such dramatic comments (which somewhat resembles "my way or highway") because some people did not agree with you. Adaption is the key, my friend. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 07:49, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Me taking ownership of this template would be ironic, certainly but isn't my intention. It seems fairly clear that participants here are divided in whether they actually see the functionality as useful or not. I'm not disputing that people disagree, merely the idea that because some people disagree all opinions in agreement should be discounted. What do you mean by 'adaption' in this context, sorry? That we should essentially grow to like it? 'some people like it, some people dislike it, the people who dislike it should suck it up' is not Wikipedia's governance model. Ironholds (talk) 08:11, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi. I am thinking whether your questions above are rhetorical, since you are apparently an admin and admins are generally familiar with the concept of consensus. Indeed, if you want to put it in a most tragic fashion, yes, you can say that in Wikipedia, where there is no clear consensus, those in favor of change are disregarded like the ants that are unwittingly trampled by humans and must either suck it up or make a dramatic exit. (I've felt it myself more than often.)


 * But you can also face it logically: You can always gather more consensus by drawing more editors to the discussion, perhaps by publicizing it in correct venues; and realize that it getting kept is not probably the end of the world. (That's what I did when the other template was merged.)


 * Now, you did know all this, right? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 08:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure. Would you be averse to either a deletion discussion or a request for comment? Ironholds (talk) 09:37, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * For reference; the questions were not rhetorical, I just found your meaning unclear. Adaption could mean either 'we should change to suit the template' or 'the template should change to suit us'. Ironholds (talk) 09:37, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The rationale for this template is well stated in its documentation. I would oppose any proposal to delete it (the template) . -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:22, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure; that wasn't the question. Would you be averse to having a conversation that brings in more participants to decide if 'the rationale is documented' means the rationale is valid, or that the gains outweigh the losses? Ironholds (talk) 11:15, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * (clarified what I meant by "it" above) My position towards bringing in more participants to this or any other discussion is irrelevant. I responded to your statement "Then frankly, I'd suggest removing this template." The template is neither confusing nor unnecessary; it solves the problem of marking sections as requiring a citation. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:38, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and started a deletion discussion, as it seemed that this discussion was going nowhere fast. ‑Scottywong | soliloquize _  15:10, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Post-MfD discussion
So, the MfD closed, and a lot of suggestions were made about how to make it look nicer. I think it'd be fair to say that a lot of people agreed that the template's appearance needs work. My vote is for making the highlighting only appear when you mouse over the "citation needed" link. Can we all agree on that, or is there significant opposition to that idea? It would address most of my concerns with the template. ‑Scottywong | gab _ 05:10, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Agree. Debresser (talk) 08:49, 11 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Disagree – 1) The point of this template is to draw attention to missing sources for parts of a sentence or for more than one sentence; this is much better achieved with a permanent highlight. 2) Mouse-over events present accessability problems; how is a person not using a mouse supposed to be informed about the section? How do mouse-over events work on devices which don't have mouses? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Speedy change - as far as I can tell, consensus for this change was already established in the deletion discussion, so no need to discuss it again. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 11:02, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Whatever was mentioned at Templates for discussion/Log/2013 February 28 is irrelevant for the styling of this template. That discussion was about deleting it and any styling discussions were incidental. I for one refrained from making any comment on the style because I considered it the wrong venue. I didn't make any comments in the deletion discussion either because I could see it would end in "no consensus = keep". But even among those who did discuss the style, I cannot see a clear consensus for a mouse-over colouring effect. By the way, does Wikipedia have a mechanism for mouse-over/hover colouring? If not, this discussion is pointless. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 12:21, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it is very relevant - in fact, arguably more relevant than this discussion, because the deletion discussion had far more exposure because of the deletion message being included in every article with the template. As for whether there actually was a consensus to change at the deletion discussion, I did note that it is "as far as I can tell" - but note the number of "keep" (and "delete") votes that mentioned this change, as well as the message the closing administrator wrote. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 12:28, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Also, keep in mind that TfD is "Templates for Discussion", not "Templates for Deletion". I also feel that there was already consensus to make it a mouseover event at TfD, but I thought I'd be careful and briefly discuss it here first.  As for concerns about compatibility with touch devices, it doesn't seem like a very big concern to me.  First of all, how many people edit (not just read, but edit) Wikipedia articles on a tablet?  And of those people who edit from a tablet, how many of them are inserting references into articles as opposed to fixing typos and making minor edits.  Adding refs to an article from an iPad would be dreadful.  In any case, the worst case scenario for tablet users is that their experience regresses back to that of the original "citation needed" template without highlighting, until they edit the page and discover the boundaries of the template in wikicode.  I think the trade-off is worth it.  To me, it's more valuable to protect the typical reader's experience than it is to protect the iPad-editor's experience, mainly because on any given day there are probably tens of millions of typical readers vs. perhaps four iPad editors that are actually working with citations.  The highlighting in this template is primarily for the editor, not the reader.  ‑Scottywong | confess _  14:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello, Scotty. From what I see in the discussion, not a single soul agreed entirely with a type of change the same way another person did. In one memorable case User:Dogmaticeclectic and User:Thibbs said agree to the same thing only to contradict each other in the next post. For another, I don't think anyone really focused on the question of "if kept, what is the consensus for change?" Last but not least, I do not think people who advised on Keep ever consented to change this template into a version of Citation needed with an easter egg. I myself agreed with Izno but opposed any significant weight being assigned to mouseover.


 * Let's do this the right way: I think the right way to is organize a proposal with four (am I counting correctly?) different courses of action clearly defined, then call an RFC and let people cast their opinion on them and say with which they agree. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 17:37, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong oppose: WP:RFC is for disputes. This is a discussion. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 18:50, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello, Dogmaticeclectic. "RFC" is short for "Request for Comment" and is used whenever there is a need for comment. "Strong oppose" is for disputes. So, it seems we have a dispute after all. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 21:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This dispute (and my opposition noted above) is about whether WP:RFC should be used here. There is no dispute about the template itself, only a discussion. Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I am not in favor of another Rfc, but actually we can make a subsection, call it Rfc, add an Rfc template ( or  ), and that is all there is to it. After all, what does it matter to attract a few more editors to the discussion? Debresser (talk) 22:17, 11 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hi. The RFC process itself is not what I insist. (Who likes bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy itself?) We need a clear plan of action and clear consensus. The mean is not much important. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 22:29, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Why hasn't this been changed yet?
Why is the consensus at WP:TFD being ignored? Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 21:36, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Because of pushy editors like you, I think. Starting a post with accusing everybody of ignoring consensus is a sure way to have the content of your proposal ignored. Debresser (talk) 22:59, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Template bug?
I have noticed that there seems to be a bug in this template. In article space, when encloses the end of a paragraph and the next paragraph begins with a wikilink, the normal break between paragraphs disappears – the two paragraphs are run-together without an intervening space.

Text before adding :
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.


 * Lorem ipsum.

looks like this after adding :
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Lorem ipsum.

The indenting, used here for clarity, will cause the template and paragraphs to render correctly in article space as will any text character that immediately follows the template's closing bracket. So, these paragraphs must begin at the left margin, the template's closing bracket must must be the last character on the line, and the first text of the next paragraph must be a wikilink (either red or blue). In fact, the two opening brackets of a wikilink is all that is needed to exhibit the problem.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks OK to me at . Please give examples of pages where the problem appears. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)


 * USS_Thomas_A._Edison_(SSBN-610), eighth and ninth paragraphs Ninth paragraph begins: Decommissioned on 1 December 1983, ...


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've been playing with this for an hour or more. I can't reproduce it in the sandbox; of the section in question. What I have found (by playing with the article itself, previewing and not saving) is that if the last paragraph begins with ordinary unlinked text, it behaves; it also behaves if the blank line before that isn't completely blank but has a single space in it. I've come across odd behaviour like this before, it concerned the  element. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi. The link belongs to the next paragraph and is okay. What I don't understand is that I copied and pasted the entire article into my sandbox and problem didn't appear. Just to be certain I opened a non-existent page called USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610n) and copied and pasted the article contents there. (I didn't save!) Sure enough, the problem appeared. But when I did it to Template:USS Thomas A. Edison (SSBN-610n), the problem did not appear.


 * This problem needs the attention of the Village Pump, right? Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 22:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)


 * P.S. Try this code:



Paragraph 2
 * It reproduces the problem, but only in article namespace. (The issue did not appear in Talk, Template and User namespaces.) Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 22:16, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. I suspect that HTML Tidy is trying to be clever again. -- Red rose64 (talk) 00:16, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You don't say! But Citation needed span must not be used so pervasively anyway. Even if we replace most of its instances with Citation needed, we're going to have WP:TAGBOMB problem. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 01:42, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 9 August 2014
The consensus to change this template that was established at Templates for discussion/Log/2013 February 28 has been ignored for long enough. The highlight on mouseover that was mentioned in that discussion should be implemented without further delay.

Dogmaticeclectic (talk) 03:01, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
 * ❌ Closing statement of TfD said "consider changing the appearance to either a different color, an underline, or a mouse over, or a combination of these" and no discussion of particular appearence followed. Also, such discussion should have included other fix-span-based templates. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 08:10, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

This template is very difficult to use in VE
This template is VERY painstaking and difficult to deal with in the new Visual Editor. I suggest that it be phased out and re-designed so that it is easier to use in the new Visual Editor. Right now, if you want to delete the template without deleting all of the text, you have to open up the template, copy/cut the text out of the "text" field, close the template, delete it, and past the text back into the article.-- &iquest;3fam  ily6  contribs 14:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be more appropriate to improve the Visual Editor so it can deal with such templates? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 06:25, 31 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Redesigning is impossible at this time. Phasing out alone is a blatant violation of the 28 Feb 2013 discussion. While consensus can change, there is no evidence that it actually has. In addition, VisualEditor is not at a stage that can influence our decision-making process regarding phasing out a template. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 09:49, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Presentation of the span-ed text
The way the CSS of this span is currently marked (a very light pink background with pink border with 'darkslategray' text [ example ]) draws people's attention to it, but maybe in a way that is counter productive. The intent is to point out that the line of text is questionable since it lacks a citation, but it seems the end result, instead, is to make it appear as highlighted important text. I would suggest that it might be better to distinguish the text by going the opposite of highlighting, and instead make the text a lighter shade of black (ie., a distinctly middle gray [#888888] [ example ]; avoid darker grays such as the current ' darkslategray ' which may be hard to differentiate on some monitors from the normal black text) to avoid the psychological effect of making it appear the text in the span is important (ie., make it so that it seems less important, almost omitted). If we certainly should keep the border (to make sure the beginning and end of sequential [citation needed] spans are distinguished [even though, the words "citation needed" should be able to do that, anyway]) then I would suggest the border be a lighter shade of gray (#DDDDDD), [ example ] but keep the background white/not-assigned [ example ], this should still make it appear less like highlighted/important text. — al-Shimoni  (talk) 20:07, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the presentation needs to be improved. At the very least, the border needs to be removed as it makes the text harder to read and makes shorter passages look like buttons. Kaldari (talk) 08:44, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and removed the border. It's still easy to see what sections are highlighted and it's less distracting now. Kaldari (talk) 08:53, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Not good. Now the highlighting is almost invisible. The background should be made a darker shade. Or, alternatively, the text should be made a lighter shade of grey as suggested by al-Shimoni. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with User:Florian Blaschke. The original appearance served the template's purpose better. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:04, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Note that this template just specifies the class to use, passing along to Fix-span:
 * Template-Fact
 * for the actual formatting. That template writes the actual &lt;div> with that class and additionally hardcodes:
 * style="background-color: #fff9f9; color: DarkSlateGray;"
 * It previously hardcoded the presence of the border. The general formatting is therefore set by the site .css. Why would the subtemplate do any hardcoded styling itself, rather than forcing the caller to specify the css class if it wants something other than normal text display? DMacks (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Just a quick comment. This may be a case where there is no optimal solution and it's always going to be a balance of pros and cons. The basis for changing the presentation (that the current pink highlighting makes it seem like "highlighted important text") is open to debate too so I think the need for a change has not been well established. We should certainly be open to new ideas but we need to weigh all the options properly here. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:55, 4 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't really care what solution is chosen, just change the darned colours already because the current state of affairs sucks big time. Pretty please! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

This subject has cropped up again. To summarise, I can't see why the text needs to stand out, and as such am proposing to reduce the level of contrast. Your thoughts would be appreciated! — Smjg (talk) 00:31, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * That appearance is necessary to indicate that more than 1 sentence needs citation. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:55, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't understand. Firstly, the template does this regardless of whether it's applied to multiple sentences, a single sentence or just a small portion of a sentence, so I don't know why you're singling out the scenario of multiple sentences.  Secondly, how does indicating something mean that the indication needs to stand out?  The border does a good enough job of indicating it. — Smjg (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

I was just viewing an article where I noticed the update. This looks much better, and seems much clearer that the text is not to be emphasized (positively) in a person's mind, but that there are questions regarding it (ie., that it needs citation to back it up). — al-Shimoni  (talk) 12:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is much worse than the original version. Now the text is grey with a grey outline, making it difficult to read. The text should at least be changed back to black. Kaldari (talk) 07:23, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This template does not specify the text colour; it's set in . The relevant change to the text colour there was made, see Template talk:Fix-span and also Template talk:Citation needed span below. I note in those discussions that it was you who suggested a grey, specifically #555 which is only very slightly darker than the #595959  which we are presently using. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 20:48, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * lol, in that case I strongly disagree with myself! #555 is a crappy compromise. I don't think it's necessary for us to de-emphasize the text. Guess I need to take this argument back to Template_talk:Fix-span. Kaldari (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 6 January 2016
Please change the appearance of the text highlighting for better visibility. Not sure how and where to do it, either here or in Fix-span, I leave that to experienced template editors who are more technologically savvy than I am. My personal preference would be #888888 for the text, as suggested above by al-Shimoni.

Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:33, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * So, like this?
 * but keep the background white/not-assigned
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 18:41, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, hat would signify the template's intent better, but I wouldn't mind going back to the original light pink background with pink border with 'darkslategray' text . -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 22:48, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Either would be fine to me, but the idea to make the text distinctly grey to make it appear less important sounds good to me, so if pressed to decide between both options, I would choose it over the old appearance. It might also be preferrable from a technical point of view; I'm not sure. However, I do not have a strong preference either way. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:08, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Done.
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

While I'm here, in the sandbox I've tweaked the spacing between the superscript and the gray border and slightly increased the spacing between the border and the starting and ending characters. Here is a comparison: Without objection, I shall update the live version to use the new spacing.
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
 * Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 19:55, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * No objection. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:16, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I just checked Causes of sexual violence, where I used the template, and it looks good to me. What do you think, Michael? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:23, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 14 January 2016
The current contrast ratio of #888 on #fff falls short of WCAG accessibility guidelines, and is therefore very difficult to read for people with certain eyesight conditions. Additionally, as a person with perfect colour vision, it is difficult for me to read too.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Content_Accessibility_Guidelines

I suggest #555 as an alternative, which would have a contrast ratio of 7.46:1, which falls within WCAG recommendations for text contrast. Example: Lorem ipsum doler sit amit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Illspirit (talk • contribs) 19:19, 14 January 2016 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 01:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * ❌ I'm not 100% following you on the exact edit that you would make if this were not otherwise protected; please make your proposed edit at Template:Citation needed span/sandbox and then reactivate the edit request.  If you just want to discuss this change, it can continue here, without being flagged for immediate edit. —  xaosflux  Talk 20:43, 24 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I believe the request is to change the #888 to #555 at Template:Fix-span (which this template incorporates). A similar request has also been made at the talk page there. Kaldari (talk) 23:58, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done I changed the foreground text color at Fix-span it to #595959, which is exactly the 7:1 aspect ratio required to pass WCAG AAA. Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|'''TALK
 * I don't think this is enough contrast for all users to be comfortable reading the content. I recommend changing the color to #333333. --Yair rand (talk) 03:43, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
 * If you don't mind, please make your change in the template's sandbox and use the testcases page to demonstrate the difference. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:55, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Merge into Template:Citation needed
I think that this template's functionality should be incorporated into Citation needed. Is there any fundamental incompatibility between the two templates? If not, we should start a TFD. Petr Matas 20:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * It's been suggested before, several times, and always rejected. Please see Templates for discussion/Log/2013 February 28 and previous discussions on this page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Ah, I have not realized that Reference necessary was merged into this template. I have added another tfd end, linking to the relevant discussion, to the top. Petr Matas 21:40, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I think Red rose64 mixed up merging with deleting. The nomination was for deletion, not adding the features of Citation needed span to Citation needed (and then redirecting the former to the latter) like Petr Matas suggested. Most wikis actually use one template instead of two (108 vs 24).
 * The one about merging is actually Templates_for_discussion/Log/2012_August_28 but it was about three templates. Currently, Citation needed span is like Citation needed with one more parameter (text=). I don't see a reason to keep both. The RedBurn (ϕ) 09:48, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am well aware of the difference between merging and deleting, thank you. In any case, WP:TFD covers both of them. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 00:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Error if links present in reason
The following demonstrates the problem: The link and formatting will extend past the end, until another link closes it or a new paragraph starts.

Somehow Jansenist becomes SilverbackNet talk 06:06, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Not possible, I think. The tool-tip only displays when the mouse cursor hovers over the Citation needed link, does it not?  Can't move the mouse cursor over the tool-tip without moving it off of the Citation needed link.  Stripped to its essence, this is what the template creates when a link is included in reason:
 * which translates into this html:
 * Citation needed ]] – this link to close the broken link
 * which, of course, doesn't work because the proper format of a wikilink is broken – opening  of the Jansenist link are translated into their html entity values and the closing   of the Jansenist link sort of terminate the Wikipedia:Citation needed link.  But, because the closing  isn't where it's supposed to be (outside of the  tags), browsers don't see it for what it is and link all text until they find the next  tag.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:48, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The content of the reason parameter is placed into [//www.w3.org/TR/html5/dom.html#the-title-attribute a HTML  attribute], which may contain text only ("The value is text.") - no markup of any sort whatsoever. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 16:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I meant to come back to this earlier; I fixed the use in question, but is it possible to create an error message if markup is found in the reason? Or would just adding a warning to the documentation be better? SilverbackNet talk 03:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It is very difficult to detect markup, since it comes in so many forms - apostrophes, square brackets, braces etc. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I meant to come back to this earlier; I fixed the use in question, but is it possible to create an error message if markup is found in the reason? Or would just adding a warning to the documentation be better? SilverbackNet talk 03:00, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It is very difficult to detect markup, since it comes in so many forms - apostrophes, square brackets, braces etc. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Turning this off with custom CSS
I would like to be able to read articles like PROMESA without the tedious interruptions of the citation-needed-span formatting. How can I turn this off - for myself - with custom CSS? --The Cunctator (talk) 01:54, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * You can add this CSS rule to Special:MyPage/common.css: I don't like using   but in this case it's necessary because the properties that you want to unset are set in a   attribute and not in a style sheet. Note that this assumes that your browser has been updated for [//www.w3.org/TR/css-cascade-3/ CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 3] which being a W3C Candidate Recommendation isn't yet a formal standard, so browser vendors are not (yet) obliged to observe its provisions. If this rule has no effect, it might be because your browser observes [//www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/cascade.html Cascading Style Sheets Level 2 Revision 1] (which is a W3C Recommendation), so try altering the first two   to   (zero); the third to   and the fourth to , preserving the   in each case. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:11, 27 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much! My CSS-foo wasn't strong enough to know how to override the  attribute. Anyone know why it's set that way and not in a style sheet? --The Cunctator (talk) 15:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I just found that you created User:The Cunctator/vector.css, which won't have worked. Not only does it lack the  annotation, you've written it to use a [//www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#type-selectors type selector] - that is, it's written to match a HTML element like  which of course doesn't exist. To select a class by name, you need to precede the class name with a full stop. This is covered at Selectors Level 3 section [//www.w3.org/TR/css3-selectors/#class-html 6.4. Class selectors]. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 15:29, 29 September 2017 (UTC)


 * yes that was a failed attempt. the lack of the preceding period was just an oversight but I could tell that approach wasn't going to work anyway. --The Cunctator (talk) 01:32, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Please add disambiguation hatnote to C-SPAN
Cspan is a redirect to Citation needed span, but may easily be confused with C-SPAN. Please add a hatnote at the top of the page for ease in quickly locating the desired template. Thanks, --Animalparty! (talk) 20:48, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Suggestion:
While making this edit, it occurred to me that the highlighting functionality of this template could be useful in conjunction with the functionality of anchor to highlight the anchor target and also, possibly, if paired with a companion template, to provide a linkback (that linkback functionality could get messy, though, with multiple links to the same anchor target). My template coding skills are very rusty so I'm not going to try to implement this; I'll leave it as just a suggestion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 18:09, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

"Template:Reference necessary" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Template:Refnec" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Template:Référence souhaitée" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Template:Cfact" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Template:CFact" listed at Redirects for discussion
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"Template:Reference required" listed at Redirects for discussion
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This is a very good template
I don't have any suggestions for improvement, just saw it out in the wild and thought it looked very nice and was very effective in communication. Thanks to whoever made and improved this template. ❤️ Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 12:24, 19 October 2023 (UTC)