Template talk:Reflist/Archive 19

Edit request from Dirtrdblues, 30 August 2011
I would like to make a slight edit to this list (or request it be done by someone else): I would like to invert the names of Emma Bolden and Pablo Tanguay as surname/first name, in keeping with the other authors' names in the list. Dirtrdblues (talk) 06:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Dirtrdblues (talk) 06:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: Please request the change on the talk page of the article in question - this is not the proper place for such a request. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Indent breaks styled list
This works:


 * This is an in-text cite.

This is an in-text cite.

But indenting with a colon breaks the reflist style:


 * This is an in-text cite.




 * This is an in-text cite.

Haven't dug into it yet, but my SWAG is that it breaks the ordered list somehow. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:09, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

It prematurely closes the div with the list-style-type. Another HTML Tidy issue?

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:30, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's an HTML Tidy issue. Anomie⚔ 18:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Indenting should not be needed in articles. I was doing some help page examples and beat my head on this for a bit. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:46, 12 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The same error occurs if you try with apostrophes. Syntactically, I suppose this shouldn't behave like that either. U+003F ? 07:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * That issue is documented. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:49, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, I certainly didn't see that when I read the documentation. Where is it? The way I read the spec, it actively encouraged use of apostrophes around "lower-alpha", even though that doesn't work. Perhaps that should be made clear somehow. U+003F ? 11:03, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * ... of course I actually mean quotation marks here. U+003F ? 11:11, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Aha, I discovered what you mean at WP:REFGROUP. Having found the documentation sufficiently confusing, I've added half a sentence to clarify that quotation marks should not be used. U+003F ? 11:21, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I thought it was here, but it is at Help:Cite link labels. Reflist uses the #switch magic word to set the  so a quote is interpreted as part of the value; since there is not match, it defaults to decimal. I updated the doc page. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:23, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Scrolling references
Yeah, I know, this is an old and long discussion. I'm aware about the issue in printable versions (I think I've read most discussions). But I still don't understand why this is cannot be done by stylesheets. For instance, with  in MediaWiki:Common.css and   in MediaWiki:Print.css should work pretty fine (even if the browser do not support css). This can be customized by users (so, the scrolling can be disable by users stylesheet). Actually, at Portuguese Wikipedia, we have being using this since October 2010. I'm not proposing scrolling (though I know that many users would like it), but I want figure out if this solution still have some problem. Giro720 (talk) 01:50, 20 September 2011 (UTC)


 * See Template:Reflist. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 02:18, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Name
About time this was moved to ? Rich Farmbrough, 22:24, 1 October 2011 (UTC).


 * That name (ironically) redirects to Unreferenced. What is wrong with "reflist"?  — Edokter  ( talk ) — 22:28, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * IMO, nothing. Rich is one of those people responsible for templates across Wikipedia being renamed to different (according to them "clearer") names, e.g. the rename of editprotected → edit protected. Anomie⚔ 23:53, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A rename makes sense as this template is wrapping the wiki-text  tag. However, due to the history of the target name, a rename would play hell with viewing old revs and diffs, no? So best leave it be. Better to view this as a name derived from the   tag.  —Portuguese Man o' War 00:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
 * History can be worked around, as we do with Expand, although a proper Mediawiki fix would be better. Rich Farmbrough, 22:07, 6 October 2011 (UTC).


 * There is no reason to move the template; the current name is well known and well used, so there is no actual clarification to be had. The fact that the proposed name is already used is an even stronger reason not to change this template to that name. In general the name of a template like this is not particularly significant. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:36, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * There speaks a true mathematician - it's merely notation.  I love the way, too, that programmers think, depending on their language heritage, THAT CAPS ARE CLEARER orWeShoudlAllUSeCamelCase or_join_words_with_underscores orsimprunthemtogwithabbr.  Out there in the big wide world, people use full words with spaces in between, (pace, textspeak) and sure the insiders club of Wikipedia editors know (perhaps) what "Reflist", "Wfy", "Dab", "Unrefsect", "Commonscat"  (Common scat?) etc. mean - we do, so I'm told, want to encourage more people to edit.  In my view, and I know  many people disagree, the cognitive load of wiki-markup, templates, categories, footnotes and tables is quite enough without adding another secret language on the basis that "we" (we happy band of editors, we geeky few) have already had to learn it. Rich Farmbrough, 19:06, 7 October 2011 (UTC).

Support for calling it Reference list as a clearer name than the current abbreviation. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 16:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment: This template does not produce a reference list. It auto-generates footnotes, which usually contain references/citations but may also contain other types of content (such as clarifications of terminology). The footnotes are often complemented by an actual list of references (works cited, bibliography), usually ordered alphabetically. See for instance King Arthur (a featured article) where the section produced by this template is called "Notes" and the list of references is called "References". The current name was misconceived from the start and renaming it Reference list wouldn't be an improvement. If anything it should be renamed notes or footnotes. --Hegvald (talk) 17:36, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, this is a valid point which I could agree with, and yes footnotes would work. (Although it exists already it only has two transclusions so would be a possibility.) &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:49, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * footnotes is a highly used redirect to a maintenance template that indicates an article needs more footnotes. Many old revisions of articles use it and many people know it. This template is already one of the most well-known and used templates on the site; it's hard to see what would be improved by renaming it, but it's easy to see the confusion that would be generated by a change. There are also other downsides to a change, like the temptation for AWB users to go through every single article that uses reflist to "correct" than name if it is changed. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 20:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes is probably better.  It's a scarcely used redirect, and has only been around for about three weeks, so will have virtually no impact on history.  In fact it's historic function for about four years was virtually identical to this template. Rich Farmbrough, 15:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC).


 * The best thing, of course, is to leave this template as is rather than renaming it. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 16:08, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Tags after template
At Carly Foulkes, we wanted to add refs in the external links section to explain why her twitter account is not verified. However, since the external links section is after the reference section where reflist is the template did not recognize the tags. Is it possible to make the template look for tags anywhere on the page, regardless of whether it is above or below the template?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 19:48, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * No, and it is not the template. Reflist simply encapsulates for styling.  only parses  tags that occur before it and have not been closed by a previous.
 * You might simply add $Account not verified$ or something similar after the entry, or add another reflist after the external links. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:02, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That is certainly possible. Look on the documentation page for 'List-defined references' and 'Grouped references'. Those should be exactly what you need.  — Edokter  ( talk ) — 20:04, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Neither list-defined references nor grouped references will solve the problem of attempting to place a reference in the page after the actual or reflist. Either way, you would have to add an(other)  or reflist even further down the article. Anomie⚔ 22:01, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 15:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

UNIQ text in references
Nested references are currently broken; see Village pump (technical). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 14:54, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 02:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Odd behaviors
I am seeing two odd issues.

1. User:Gadget850/T1 , #tag:references, and all close a list. does not close the list even though it encapsulates #tag:references.

2. Template:Refn/testcases &#35;tag:ref and using a name properly renders a reference. does not. I am fairly sure this worked fairly recently. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. See Template:Reflist/doc. In short, the parser caches the output of template invocations without parameters; you can see better what is going on if you don't use the same content for all your test refs.
 * 2. If you're referring to how the three instances of refn that don't specify a name are combined into one, I don't see how it would ever have worked unless at some point in the past  was considered the same as  ; as it is, it creates 3 references to a ref named with the empty string. If you're referring to how the ref from inside the second and third refn shows in the reflist even though the text of those references is not displayed, I've never encountered that bug before. Anomie⚔ 23:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. But why is and  rendering differently? And I wrote Multiple uses, so I do know about it.
 * 2. Why do &#35;tag:ref and render differently?
 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 01:53, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * 1. The first invocation of on the page renders normally. All subsequent invocations are never re-parsed, it just repeats the same old output. Other than that, they look identical to me.
 * 2. How so? [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anomie/Sandbox8&oldid=455312726 They look identical to me], as long as you remember to specify the empty name that refn is supplying by default. If you want refn to generate unnamed refs, I think you'll have to do something like [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Anomie/Sandbox6&diff=455312955&oldid=455261045 this]. Anomie⚔ 03:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)


 * 1. reflist encapsulates #tag:references, so for the default, I would expect the same rendering. User:Gadget850/T2 and User:Gadget850/T3 are identical, except that the T2 uses #tag:references and T3 uses reflist. In T2, each instance of #tag:references is closing the list; in T3, each instance of reflist does not close the list, thus the familiar repetition of references.
 * 2. I will test that tomorrow, and check group as well. Thanks! ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 03:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Tabs, style sheets
My guess is that if we put refs on a separate tab, that:
 * - most users wouldn't click that tab
 * - those who did would still be happy that the page formatter didn't have to deal with refs unless they did
 * - we would resemble sites are putting comments on separate tabs lately for the same reason
 * - printing wouldn't be an issue, because it could use a different format that would include the refs

Lfstevens (talk) 06:58, 27 November 2011 (UTC)


 * We do not have any technical way to put references into another browser tab. This would require a software change; see WP:BUG. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 09:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think he means another page tab (e.g. [Article] [References] [Talk]). — Edokter  ( talk ) — 11:04, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I very much doubt your second and fourth points, and the third is irrelevant. Regarding the second, users who actually want to see the references would probably be annoyed that they had to go back and forth between two different pages just to see the content of any ref. And regarding the fourth, Wikipedia is currently set up such that a reader can use the "print" button on their browser and the article will print correctly, without their having to find and click a separate "printable view" button; this proposal would destroy that. Solving these issues would negate the major point I see to your proposal, namely the purported reduction in parser load. Anomie⚔ 13:49, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Point 2 is about page load speed. Of course, we could include a preference to control the behavior. Point 3 is about keeping up with the evolving surroundings. Point 4 is about automatically adding a standard "print" format. Clicking Print evokes that style sheet. No need for printable preview, right? Lfstevens (talk) 23:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Regardless, this template, not any other template can do what you are suggesting. This requires a change to the software extension. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 00:33, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * So how exactly would you avoid parsing the references while still having the parsed text of the references available for the printing? Anomie⚔ 01:22, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Parse them client side, on demand, with javascript. Rich Farmbrough, 12:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC).


 * Which assumes (1) a Javascript wikitext parser exists that it can handle transclusion, (2) that the user has Javascript enabled, and (3) that all of this can somehow be automatically triggered when the user activates their browser's "print" function. Anomie⚔ 14:16, 15 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, did I forget to say ? Rich Farmbrough, 23:26, 15 December 2011 (UTC).

Empty reflist
Back in 2008, there was discussion about having this template display the equivalent of if the ref list is empty. I just edited an article that had an empty references section, and think that suggestion from three years ago still makes a lot of sense. 64.136.198.246 (talk) 14:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * One problem with that... the template can't actually detect if there are references present (to my knowledge), so this my not be technically possible. — Edokter  ( talk ) — 14:46, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't see how reflist can do this. The template merely applies styles to, which in turn is part of the cite.php software extension. There was other discussion on automatically adding unreferenced, but we have so many systems that it is impratical. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:15, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I was hoping someone familiar with implementing templates might know of WP:MAGIC or mediawiki customization that could be used to accomplish this. 64.136.198.246 (talk) 14:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Add a warning re. usage in the wrong namespace?
Would it be possible to turn the template into a warning, linking to reflist-talk or template reference list as appropriate, when reflist is transcluded to the wrong namespace? Thanks.  It Is Me Here  t / c 15:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't see the issue— those templates have some different styling and should not be used in articles, but reflist can be and has been used on talk and other pages for ages. If we change it, we will get a lot of warnings on archived pages. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 15:44, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I mention it because I just came across a [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Muhammad&oldid=470194261#Can_someone_figure_out.3F request] to [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Muhammad&diff=next&oldid=470194261 fix] a reflist template that wasn't working on a talk page – or was the problem there something different?  It Is Me Here  t / c 16:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It would have worked just as well to use . See Template:Reflist. Anomie⚔ 22:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, thanks  It Is Me Here  t /  c 22:33, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Advice on Editing "Reflists"
If a list of references contains questionable information, how is that changed? The "reflist" format makes the references hidden on the Wiki editing screen. Ryoung 122 05:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)


 * See Referencing for beginners. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:44, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Multiple columns
no longer works. Yours aye, Buaidh  03:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What browser and version are you using? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:43, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What page are you seeing this? — Edokter  ( talk ) — 10:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
 * works with Firefox 10.0, but does not work with Internet Explorer 9.0.  Buaidh  15:31, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Have you seen the notice at the top of the template page? ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 16:47, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
 * What is Reflist doing differently? Buaidh  01:49, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Nothing. IE9 does not support the CSS3 column markup. We have looked at alternative methods, but there is no other way to do this. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:09, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Hello I had seen a user change into  with an edit summary having a link to wp:MOS and talking of some consensus (without link). can some one guide me what this means and where can i find the documentation and the consensus. I feel this is better than  as it splits refs into multiple columns --  Ð ℬig  XЯaɣ  18:29, 5 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Template:Reflist: If a single unnamed parameter is supplied, it is treated as a column-count if it is a natural number or as a column-width if it is a typographic unit of measurement such as em. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 18:38, 5 May 2012 (UTC)

has been changed
has been changed to match the font size of this template, so there's not much point in using it any more. Attempting to correct the issue at the village pump just results in obfuscation. Perhaps we should create a second reflist template for those who were relying on (notes which should not be reduced in fontsize, etc)? — kwami (talk) 05:35, 20 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Village pump (technical). ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 10:18, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be a bug with the colums
Whenever I'm reading an article which got I find that the whole article on one column, at the width of the left column, and on the right I find the other ref. (checked on Dolphin Browser for Android, seems to work fine on the rest ) Yuval Y  §  Chat  § 00:50, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Do either of these examples display in columns?

Example 1


 * a
 * b
 * c
 * d
 * e
 * f
 * g
 * h

Example 2


 * a
 * b
 * c
 * d
 * e
 * f
 * g
 * h


 * ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 01:29, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Both are working well -- Yuval Y §  Chat  § 09:21, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

How about these two samples:

---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * They works well too, and the Dolphin is really starting to get on my nerves with several bugs... =) -- Yuval Y §  Chat  § 12:51, 16 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Reading your problem again, I may be on the wrong track. It might be a problem with widows and orphans. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 13:05, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, as much as I checked, Dolphin is Safari. -- Yuval Y §  Chat  § 19:26, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Widows and orphans are a documented issue. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:03, 16 May 2012 (UTC)