Template talk:Reflist/Archive 2007

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[edit] Non-Mozilla browsers and multiple columns

I see that the multiple-column code only works for Mozilla-based browsers. Can we see some adjustment for other browsers? The big three that I see needing support are Safari, Opera and (if we have to), MSIE. Thanks. —Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 19:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

A workaround? It might be possible to do a javascript workaround, if it's really important. Though since it's part of the CSS3 working draft, Safari and Opera will probably support it sooner or later. --Interiot 19:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
See Template:Navigation with columns for the ugly work-around and its development/talk history. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reflist vs. references

I've only ever seen <references/> used to list the references, but recently someone added {{reflist}} to a page I was watching. What is the difference between them? Is one preferred? Wikipedia:Citing sources only mentions <references/>. Tocharianne 20:25, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering the same thing. Also, I've noticed some articles have switched to <div class="references-small">{{reflist|2}}</div>, which I find more appealing aesthetically as a long list of references doesn't dwarf the main content of the article. Is this preferred? Rtcpenguin 22:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, I think I've answered my own question. The style guide (footnotes section) states:
  • "Some editors make the references smaller. Although this has several disadvantages, it is common with very long lists of references to enclose the <references/> tag in a 'references-small class div', like this: <div class="references-small"><references/></div> "
For now I'm going to use the small style of references unless someone has an objection. Rtcpenguin 22:15, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I actually do have a problem with the smaller size of the references because on some articles there are references that aren't cited in the text and they end up being regular size. (They're usually bulleted, check Mary I of England for an example of this.) The smaller size can be extended to them, but this requires explicitly adding the code. Otherwise, if all references are cited in the text with <ref> then you're right, smaller is usually better. Tocharianne 23:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Instances of ref-small

I created {{ref-section}} (and {{references-small}} also exists) to do this sort of thing. Will bots be doing replacements? (I subst'd {{ref-section}} whenever I used it.) —Rob (talk) 18:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, I think we would want something like this as an option for usage...
{{reflist|extra=
*extra reference 1
*extra reference 2
}}
Can we do something like this so when people want to add general references which are not cited at specific locations in the article, they can and the new references will appear in the same size as the cited ones? By the way, I want to send out a thanks to all the contributors who have helped with this template - I made it wondering if anyone else would agree to use it and the support has been overwhelming. --Anthony5429 04:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I was just going to suggest this. It shouldn't require many changes to the template, should it? Many thanks for this template btw, once this modification has been made it should be included in the general editing page shortcuts IMO. --Chris Cunningham 10:12, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I personally prefer the footnotes and global references to be in two different sections (eg. ==References==/==Notes== and ==Sources==) (does WP:MOS say anything about that?) So maybe it would be better if there's a separate template (if it's really needed) to make a separate section small. --Interiot 14:50, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I agree. How is this for citing notes, 3 options...
Option 1 (only specific references) - see The Rule
== References ==

{{reflist}}
Option 2 (only general sources) - see National Publications
== Sources ==

{{sourcesstart}}
* source 1
* source 2
{{sourcesend}}
Option 3 (both specific references and general sources) - see Elephant
== Notes ==

=== References ===

{{reflist}}

=== Sources ===

{{sourcesstart}}
* source 1
* source 2
{{sourcesend}}
Does anyone else think this is a good idea? I think it is the best solution and will clear up confusion to declare specific notes as references and general notes as sources. --Anthony5429 21:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I have gone ahead and put this on Reflist/doc. See the discussion at the bottom of this talk page. --Anthony5429 07:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I think this method makes more sense and keeps the site cleaner. I will make the change if no one disagrees. Does anyone disagree? --Anthony5429 00:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Option 1 (only specific references)
== References ==

{{reflist}}
Option 2 (only general references)
== References ==

{{refbegin}}
* general reference 1
* general reference 2
{{refend}}
Option 3 (both specific and general references)
== References ==

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}
* general reference 1
* general reference 2
{{refend}}
If you disagree with the change, please voice your disapproval here. --Anthony5429 00:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
After not seeing any disagreement and actually seeing refbegin and refend be added to the /doc, I went ahead and finished making /doc look like the above. Any questions about the change should be noted here. --Anthony5429 05:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki for Interlingua

Dear administrator, please add the following interwiki:

[[ia:Patrono:Reflist]]

Thank you in advance, Julian 22:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. Please note that this template uses an unprotected documentation sub-page (see the explanation and link on the template page) so that all users can add interwikis and make other documentation updates. --CBD 00:13, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from Template:Reference

Since nobody seems to disagree, I have merged Template:Reference here via redirection. I'm also including the talk page discussion here, for future reference (no pun intended): COGDEN 17:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge to reflist?

For what it's worth, there's a bit of discussion at Template talk:reflist about merging this and {{ref-list}} over to that template... This template previously isn't directly used on any current articles (though the template says it should be subst'd, so it's hard to gauge actual use... For what it's worth, {{ref-list}} had ~6 backlinks). {{Reflist}} has 2000+ backlinks now. The templates are slightly different ({{reflist}} doesn't include the section header, and doesn't necessarily need to be subst'd), but I don't know that we need multiple versions of the template when one seems to be overwhelmingly used more than the other. --Interiot 10:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Vote to have Reference merged with Reflist...
Merge - With the advent of Reflist, I see no reason for Reference. --Anthony5429 13:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Merge COGDEN 23:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Three options for usage

I have posted this proposition on this talk page and put it into use with no disagreement so I am hereby adding it to the reflist/doc. Please discuss here if you disagree. --Anthony5429 07:49, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging Ref-list into here

The merge proposal for {{Ref-list}} and {{Reflist}} never completed, I think because there was never a merge template on {{Reflist}} and the discussion ended up on multiple talk pages. I have corrected this so now we can have a coherent discussion on this.

Myself, I prefer to use {{Ref-list}} much of the time because it saves me from having to type the header. You won't, however, find it transcluded onto any pages because it really does have to be substituted for text because the header includes an edit link that leads users to the (currently unprotected) template's edit page. For an example of this see User:Elipongo/My Sandbox. My understanding of the discussion above this is that the reason {{Reflist}} is preferred is so that it can be transcluded and make the Wiki markup easier to read. That does make sense, however it would be nice to save myself the trouble of typing the header too. I don't know if there's a way, but can {{Ref-list}} be made to include a transcluded {{Reflist}} when it's substituted for text? —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 16:30, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm changing my standing to merge via redirect. I keep a copy of the suggested layout from {{Reflist}} in my "Frequent edits" text file that I keep open in a window. I no longer use {{Ref-list}} and now I think it should simply be redirected to here- especially in the light of recent erroneous edits to the template by users who didn't know better. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 18:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
This template {{reference}} also includes the heading references - so I find it much more useful - ref-list while having more options does not provide the same functionality as this template which has a simple name and a simple function. --Trödel 14:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
merge/redirect One problem that the English Wikipedia has is that there are too many editors duplicating other's efforts. We must curb this. One example that shows this is Template:Navigational templates. Now we already have <references/>, <div class="references-small">, which people already use all over the place. I believe we should be in a transitional phase where we convert all of those into using {{Reflist}}, and one template only. Having a duplicate only complicates the matter. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect per Chochopk - represents a duplication of effort. Addhoc 21:38, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Merge/redirect The [edit] link is totally misleading. –Pomte 21:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect, after changing all pages that use "{{ref-list}}" to instead use "==References==\n{{reflist}}", so {{ref-list}} can be turned into a pure redirect without changing the way current pages look. If there's no significant disagreement with this, I can do these replacements when this discussion closes. --Interiot 22:49, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Done. I changed all pages that used {{ref-list}} to use "==References==\n{{reflist}}" instead, and {{ref-list}} is now a pure redirect to here. That means anyone who continues to use {{ref-list}} will have to add an extra ==References==, but at least it doesn't change the rendering of any current pages. --Interiot 19:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] accessibilty problems

Dividing the references up 3 or more problems creates columns which are too small at 1024x768. There are even still some people using 800x600 or have their browser configured to use a larger font size which results in unacceptable results. This template should be changed to only allow 1 or 2 columns (in particular by using the references-small and references-2columns which I've added to common.css, this allows anyone using a resolution lower or higher than 1280x1024 to specify the number of columns they prefer.) —Ruud 01:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather not forcibly prevent {{reflist|3}}, though I certainly agree that it shouldn't be used unless the columns are extremely narrow. But yeah, references-2columns sounds great whenever two columns are requested at least (I take it that users are encouraged to modify .references-2columns in their monospace.css if they usually use a large font with a low resolution?). It might be reasonable to prevent maybe 4 or 5 columns... any chance we could get a .references-3columns, so we don't needlessly restrict editors? --Interiot 02:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I have seen a 3-column used where each is a very short thing. I don't remember where. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Lists such as Films considered the worst ever that have a correspondingly huge list of links that nobody cares to convert. –Pomte 15:54, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] font size

If you're watching this template, then you might be interested in this. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 11:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What?

Column division doesn't seem to work. I see only one on every ref section.--Emperor Walter Humala · ( talk? · help! ) 18:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't work in IE. It works in Firefox. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion: Collapsable reflist

Is there any way to make the reflist "collapsable" or "hidable"?

I ask in relation to biographical list-type articles, where every entry has a reference, with the result of several hundred references. Being able to hide these references would be very useful.

Cheers! Lauren♫/∆ 03:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That's be great. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 04:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
There's a template called {{hidden}} that you can try using, although I have no idea why you'd want to. Tuxide 04:42, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Using {{hidden}}, the reflist would be hidden by default if there are several other NavFrames on the page. Also, clicking on a citation link [1] will not open the hidden reflist or direct to it. Is this really desirable? –Pomte 04:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It would require more javascript code, I presume, to make sure that it opened up whenever a [1] was clicked on. I don't know off the top of my head whether it's straightforward to implement this. --Interiot 09:57, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a link handy, but check out the debate leading up to the deletion of Template:Scrollref. Should be in the deletion log. Similar issues would affect a collapsible reflist - How would it be printed? Would it work well with a screenreader? Political issues around the default status of such a reflist would also be contentious. Apparently there's a lot of people that think a references section, regardless of size, should almost never be obscured. MrZaiustalk 16:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why not distinguish the notes?

What's the point of not having separate sections for notes and references? Having separate sections can only make things clearer. I don't see how the opposite would be true.

Peter Isotalo 13:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure you can have separate sections. See Fight Club for an example. –Pomte 02:03, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't use templates like these since I consider them confusing to editors in the long run, so I wasn't really referring to what can be done technicaly. What I was referring to is why the idea of separating notes and the list of sources isn't even hinted at. If anything, the tendency to use one single section for both notes and sources should be actively and strongly discouraged since it makes it much more difficult to see exactly how many and which sources have been used. It makes footnotes much harder to read (a situation already exacerbated by the use of smaller text) due to endless repetition of the same information instead of using a minimum of shorthand. And by this I mean simply referring to a work as Doe (1965) or Google: section X and Y, not using academic notation like ob cit, et al, ibid, and so forth. I mean, are there any good arguments for ever keeping notes in the "Reference"-section?
Peter Isotalo 13:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Convenience, I guess. It's harder to maintain shorthand; you'd have to be wary that you don't insert a citation before ibid. A lot of sources happen to be cited only once, so it's more work to write it both shorthand and longhand, as well for readers to match them by eye. Depends on the article. In most cases it's fairly easy to count the number of total sources (same as the number of citations ignoring the a, b, c etc), so I don't see what you mean. When used properly, none of the citation methods repeatedly list the same content, at least none I'm aware of.
If you want to change the documentation of this template to encourage distinguishing notes, there should be no problem with doing that. "Option 3" sort of hints at notes above references. According to WP:HEAD, combining the two sections is okay. There's actually a current proposal to switch all <references> into {{reflist}} for a specific type of article, which many others see as an absurd/unnecessary idea. –Pomte 14:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What do the multiple columns do?

I read the template usage directions and it mentions that we can use {{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}}, however, nowhere in the page does it say what these do. What do the multiple columns do? What is the advantage of using one of these templates instead of the plain {{reflist}} template? Could someone answer please, thank you.--Leon Sword 02:46, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand, it looks like it says so right on Template:Reflist#Multiple columns. Sometimes people use multiple columns to save whitespace when many footnotes don't span the entire page. Tuxide 02:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multi-column reference numbering bug

I don't know that this is always noticeable, but I've found that multi-column reference lists have a bug wrt the numbering of references. In Firefox, I can change the display font size, and the number at the bottom of the left column and the next reference at the top of the right column can be the same -- and the whole right column continues from there so that the last reference number is one fewer than it should be. This applies to long lists (100+ references) and short (5 references). --Dhartung | Talk 04:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've seen this in Firefox too. I think it's clearly a Firefox bug, but if there's more information about it somewhere (eg. in their bugzilla, for instance), maybe there's some sort of work-around we could implement. --Interiot 16:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish

Swedish version avabile. Add [[sv:Mall:Reflist]]. -- Najoj 16:20, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

{{editprotected}}

Y Done. Note that this template uses the doc-page pattern, so non-admins can add interwikis by editing {{reflist/doc}}. --ais523 16:50, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] coding error

{{editprotected}} The tag should be <references />, not <references/>. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

done CMummert · talk 23:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from FootnotesSmall

I propose that {{FootnotesSmall}} be redirected to this template. It's largely the same, except for two things:

There is an issue that it uses style="font-size:92%", while this uses class="references-small". This has been hashed over at some length on Template talk:FootnotesSmall and a TfD. However, it seems clear to me that class="references-small" is preferred because it allows readers with vision problems to adjust the size of reference text using their personalized monobook.css. Hard-coding the size without even a class or ID to trigger off of prevents customizing the references size on an individual basis.

Also, {{FootnotesSmall}} allows the first parameter to use a size other than 92%, but it's not clear that m/any pages use this, especially since the shorter {{Footnotes}} can be used for the same thing (and someone could use AWB to convert over the uses of {{FootnotesSmall}} to {{Footnotes}} that don't use the default size). --Interiot 19:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue, as I understand it, is that reference-small does font-size 90%, and FootnotesSmall does 92%. Earlier attempts to change FootnotesSmall to 90% have been reverted, and a proposal to make references-small 92% did not gain much support. It would be nice for consistency if all resized footnotes were resized the same, but it is possible that changing FootnotesSmall will cause the hard-coding to move to the articles. Quite a few articles use FootnotesSmall and 100%, so a simple redirect would have complications. Gimmetrow 20:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, either way, the minimal-impact course of action would be to use AWB to change all uses of non-default-size FootnotesSmall's to Footnote, before redirecting. And regardless of what the size is, we really should be discouraging hard-coding of the size in articles, or at the very least providing some sort of standard class or ID so people can override it in monobook.css with !important. --Interiot 20:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, right now {{FootnotesSmall}} allows only 92% or 100%. 100% when 100% is specified, and 92% whenever someone tries to change it to anything else. I am baffled as to why anyone who use a template to set 100% instead of just using <references />. Anyway, I agree that the style should at least be named with a css style name/selector, preferably standardized to one number other than 100%. I don't know what the fuss is about 90% vs. 92%, but would 91% be a fair compromise at all? The template {{Footnotes}} is dubious at best, as all it does is provide an HTML comment before transcluding {{FootnotesSmall}}. Changing all single-uses of {{FootnotesSmall}} to {{subst:Footnotes}} doesn't improve anything except provide a helpful comment. So I support redirecting all these unnecessary templates to {{reflist}} so reference sections don't look different from article to article. AWB should be used to find all hard-coded sizes. –Pomte 02:56, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I would prefer consistency on the resizing too, but will this actually do it? Is a little inconsistency on this point really harming the encyclopedia? Is it worse than editors hard-coding 92% in text because they refuse to use the default 90% css? (And no, 91% won't work for the 92%ers and it wasn't found satisfactory to the rest, either.) Gimmetrow 04:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't resize by default

On a related note, I do not think reflist should resize references by default. Resizing does not, to my knowledge, have consensus for short lists of references. {{Reflist}} should just produce <references /> and that's it. {{reflist|1}} could produce single-column small, and {{reflist|2}} double-column small. Gimmetrow 20:05, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

But I think most of the current uses of {{reflist}} accept that it makes the font small. Otherwise, <references /> works just fine - what's the point of having a template do the tag? –Pomte 02:38, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not aware of a consensus for small notes. Reflist has been used because it was a template and that allegedly makes tracking and future uniformity easier. Gimmetrow 04:10, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Consistency is already provided by the fact that<references/> is rendered as <ol class="references">. And {{reflist}} is used on more than 20,000 articles.... if the main reason for reflist were to provide tracking, I don't think very many people would use it at all.
Pomte is correct... the main difference from the average-editor's standpoint is that <references/> provides full-size text, and {{reflist}} provides smaller text. That's what reflist's reason for existence has been since the very beginning, and changing it now would be going against decisions that thousands of editors have explicitly made. --Interiot 03:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Which is why this should have been done to begin with, and its unfortunate that it was not. Gimmetrow 03:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The smaller font reduces the number of cases where non-wrapping, extra-long URLs spoil the appearance of the right-hand column when printing to pdf or paper (see section below). Jayen466 17:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
But then nobody would have used it, since it would have been redundant with <references/>. Really, if you want large references, just use that, there's no benefit to using this. I've clarified the documentation to note that <references/> can and should still be used. [3] --Interiot 21:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Good! Amazing what a little off-hand comment can do. Gimmetrow 22:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with Interiot and others in this - the main advantage is that it makes things small. Orderinchaos 15:56, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Coming in on this late: However, there has been extensive discussion at User talk:Java7837 about this template, and one topic that's come up is that apparently some users wish for reference lists that could be full size-text, but in columns. Would it be possible to add a second parameter making that possible, while retaining "small" as the default? The other alternative for such users would be to create a second template called, oh who knows, "Reflist-full" or somesuch, which copies the code of this template but changes the font size. I personally prefer the font size small for articles I use this template in, but it would seem wasteful to create a whole new template just to take care of this one matter of preference. --Yksin 21:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

If you really want full size two-column notes, this can be handled with classes in div tags. This seems like a fairly rare choice, and I don't necessarily see this should be encouraged. There are already too many options for notes with full size, small and small/2column.
Although {{reflist}} incorporates the <references /> tag, it also makes the font smaller. Reflist was created to make font resizing easier, not to replace the direct use of <references /> in text. For long lists of notes (typical of featured articles) a smaller font is fairly standard, but there is no mandate for all notes to be resized or to use reflist, and editors should not be arbitrarily changing <references /> to {{reflist}} in articles. Multiple columns has other issues, since it doesn't even work on some browsers. Three or more columns is even worse. Gimmetrow 01:08, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Can you provide some example articles where this would be necessary? –Pomte 02:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Printing multi-column reference lists

We are currently discussing implementing reflist, or something like it, in the German Wikipedia, since the two-column format for references often makes eminent sense. However, a number of users have pointed out that multi-column displays of references don't always print correctly (this happens both on paper and in pdf). The reason is that the URLs (which are hidden on screen) are shown in full in the pdf and on hardcopy printouts. Now, long URLs present in the left-hand column don't wrap, but continue into the right-hand column, superimposed on any text that is present there, with the unfortunate result that often neither is legible. Has this ever been raised as a problem in English Wikipedia? Any views on this issue? Jayen466 17:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

For the first issue, that could be resolved by putting the multi-column CSS bits in the global stylesheet, and prefacing them with @media.
For the second issue, as far as I know, when bare URLs are used on en.wikipedia.org, usually they're wrapped in [...], so they're rather short.--Interiot 21:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, don't know my way around html well enough here. But to see the URL problem in pdfs and printouts, simply try printing the English George W Bush article (e.g.) from Mozilla, either to pdf or to paper, and see how the references come out. In my pdf, it's a mess, with lots illegible. It is correct that URLs in square brackets do not have the web address showing on screen, just some brief words linking to that address. But when printing, the URLs are expanded again and shown in full length, in normal () brackets behind the link wording the user sees on screen. And it seems that because they include no spaces, these URLs are considered as -- very long -- single words, and thus they don't wrap. Jayen466 00:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
The css may be able to take care of that. However, it's my impression that it can be complicated to make a print version of Wikipedia, possibly requiring a lot of manual or automated work. Is there a group within German Wikipedia that's responsible for generating the print version? Could you ask them what the right way to handle this is? As far as I know, we haven't figured out how to properly deal with this on enwiki (eg. {{hidden}} is widespread here in large navigation boxes like {{Infobox Ship Characteristics}} and {{scouting}}). --Interiot 00:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I've only started contributing to German WP quite recently, so don't know very much about who's doing what. At present, reflist is not implemented in German WP, and the use of any other browser-specific column format (such as div style moz column count) is discouraged on the corresponding Help page. Also, they still have far fewer sources in their articles than English WP, so right now there are fewer pages where multi-column references are an issue. That will probably change ... but for the moment, the print problem is avoided, since their standard is to use single-column format only. Cheers, Jayen466 10:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Interiot, I think he is just talking about the printable version available through MediaWiki, see e.g. [4]. The references section of the print version is indeed a mess. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that page illustrates the problem nicely, and parallels what I got on my hardcopy printout, just by pressing Ctrl-P in Firefox. Now, if there were any way to get the long URLs to wrap so they don't wander out of their appropriate columns ... Jayen466 22:29, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that's partly why some editors resist two-column reference lists. Three-column is worse. Gimmetrow 16:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
See also below: "long url(s) do not get wrapped to next line" Jayen466 19:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contained in a box

I stumbled upon Britney Spears and saw

 {{scroll box|text={{reflist|2}}|height=200px}}

which hides the gigantic load of refs. I thought, "hey, this is a good idea", so I started copying and pasting to articles with the most revisions. And then I realized, "what the heck am I doing?". Wounldn't it be better if we create a wrapper template for that, say "scrollref" with the number of column as the first parameter, and height as another (default = 200px). How does this sound? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Here ya go: Template:Scrollref - tested here: User:MrZaius/sandbox/Templates. MrZaiustalk 10:47, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Wow, that was quick.... Perhaps I should have been bold. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:53, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Why in the world would we want to (a) complicate navigation for users and (b) hide references? This is a BAD practice. --ElKevbo 15:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with ElKevbo. Citations are not shameful things to be swept under a rug. They should be proudly displayed and easily accessed. —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 17:04, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree that hiding references is bad practice -- further discussion at Template talk:Scrollref.--Eloquence*
I also agree this is a bad practice. It makes it quite complicated to look over the references. - auburnpilot talk 18:32, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I also agree. Should we nominate the new template for deletion? Aaron Bowen 18:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Update
The template has been deleted. Note that there are still pages that include the equivelant of a substituted scrollref template that should be removed. I still believe that the layout of an article with 100+ references is benefited by the use of a scroll box, but no workaround was ever found to make it possible to print obscured content within a scrollbox. Similar issues may exist for disabled readers using screenreaders and similar translation techniques. As such, the use of template:scroll box, template:scrollbox, and equivalent substituted code should be avoided in Main namespace at this time. MrZaiustalk 16:30, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
If the problem is printing, the style for the reference list container DIV could be set differently in the print media CSS (or local STYLE block). I don't know how Wikipedia handles the whole style thing, but it should be possible. ¤ ehudshapira 22:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Image:ReflistScroll.jpg
Scrolls bars creating accessibility issues
It's not just an issue of printing, but also accessibility. The formatting creates a problem viewing references, and in my browser (mozilla firefox) forces me to scroll two bars to view the references. See the image I've uploaded to the right to see what I'm talking about. - auburnpilot talk 23:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
There's only a single scrollbar for me on IE6, Firefox 2 and Opera 9 (looking at the same article as you: Israel). Although, with 2 columns (on FF) there's an horizontal scrollbar. (But... it's not there initially as the browser formats the page. It only appears after a few tens of references were added. I think it may be formatting issues with the long URL references which aren't broken to fit the columns.)

What version/platform are you using? It might just be a minor problem to iron out. Another option would be only enabling it on browsers that behave well with it (like the Mozilla-specific columns). ¤ ehudshapira 23:41, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox/2.0.0.6 and Windows XP, but I've always had this issue when {{scrollref}} and the like are applied. - auburnpilot talk 23:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
No such problem for me on the same version and OS (nor on an older version 2). Maybe it's some extension or user style on your FF, or your Wikipedia settings?

Assuming we stage a testing area and other people confirm it's okay, and assuming different CSS styles could be applied for display and print media, are there other objections? ¤ ehudshapira 00:12, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

The image to the right {kudos to whoever uploaded it!) illustrates the problem and it's not dependent on a particular browser. When the article is long enough to already have a vertical scrollbar, adding a second one is a legitimate and confusing problem. --ElKevbo 00:11, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
AuburnPilot is having two scrollbars for the references themselves, unrelated to the page scrollbar. I don't think having a scrollable area inside a page is a problem (do you have a problem with page editing, for e.g.?) ¤ ehudshapira 00:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I technically have three scrollbars when the scrollref formatting is applied. I simply cropped out the browser's page scrollbar so that the image would only contain GFDL text and meet the Wikipedia screenshot license tag. - auburnpilot talk 00:28, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh. Well, that does sound like a bug. If it helps (and it doesn't), I'm using the same version of FireFox and also on XP. --ElKevbo 00:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Belgium

Could other editors please weigh in on the ongoing discussion at Talk:Belgium regarding the use of a scrollbox for footnotes? Thanks! --ElKevbo 13:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] long url(s) do not get wrapped to next line

  • When looking at an article in print preview, i noticed that long urls used in references are not wrapped to the next line when using this {{reflist}} template. For example, just try to view this page in print preview (click here) and you will see that the url just goes on and on within the same line in the Reference section. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 21:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • any ideas as to how this can be fixed? i would fix it myself, but I have no idea how coding works here so I hope someone else can help with it -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 14:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
This is the same problem as the one described above under "Printing multi-column reference lists". Jayen466 19:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
It has nothing to do specifically with this template, just the Cite extension. You might want to bring it up on the Cite extension's page on Meta. The last two examples don't use {{reflist}}; you can clearly see this by viewing the source. Tuxide 05:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References

  1. ^ such as this
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ test
  4. ^ test1
  5. ^ test2
  6. ^ test
  7. ^ test2
  8. ^ hiho
  9. ^ [2]
  10. ^ haheh

[edit] Just cite extension alone

[edit] class="references-2column"

[edit] Two columns not working

I've noticed that pages using {{reflist|2}} are only displaying one column whereas this page still states that it will display two. Is the template broken? Has it been changed and the explanation not updated? (I see there have been some issues) I've specifically noticed this at Matt Groening and Al Gore though there are probably others. Stardust8212 17:08, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Have you changed browsers? Some browsers do not recognize the code used to make two columns, and display in one. Gimmetrow 17:41, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
If you are not using Firefox, the documentation tells you about it. –Pomte 17:42, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Image:ReflistAU.jpg
I'm having an issue with pages that use {{reflist|2}} as well. I'm using Firefox, but any page that uses {{reflist|2}} only displays the reflist half way across the page. Look at the image to the right to see what I'm talking about. - auburnpilot talk 01:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Webkit support

{{editprotected}} If this template included -webkit-column-width and -webkit-column-count properties, it would support columns in Safari on Mac OS, Windows, and the iPhone. —Michael Z. 2007-07-04 15:06 Z

Could you be more explicit- what needs changed to what etc. GDonato (talk) 13:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
<div class="references-small" {{#if: {{{colwidth|}}}| style="-moz-column-width:{{{colwidth}}}; column-width:{{{colwidth}}};" | {{#if: {{{1|}}}| style="-moz-column-count:{{{1}}}; column-count:{{{1}}} }};" |}}>

to

<div class="references-small" {{#if: {{{colwidth|}}}| style="-moz-column-width:{{{colwidth}}}; -webkit-column-width:{{{colwidth}}}; column-width:{{{colwidth}}};" | {{#if: {{{1|}}}| style="-moz-column-count:{{{1}}}; -webkit-column-count:{{{1}}}; column-count:{{{1}}} }};" |}}>

I assume. GracenotesT § 16:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Y Done GDonato (talk) 18:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I wasn't more specific. Thanks for implementing it, folks. —Michael Z. 2007-07-10 00:22 Z

[edit] Differences

What are the differences between {{reflist}} and <references/>? Simply south 23:18, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The difference is that the latter was disrupted a day or two ago, with all footnotes being displaced to the right and the layout of thousands pages altered beyond recognition. Here's a good example. --Ghirla-трёп- 16:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Anything affecting <references /> would affect {{reflist}} too, no? (I don't see anything odd in the link you provide.) Reflist is a template which includes the references/ tag but has additional code to put the notes in a smaller font. For short lists of notes, there is no need to use a smaller font, though. Gimmetrow 16:58, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
The templates are still broken; reflist with columns doesn't even work. MSJapan 15:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Delete this template?

On the Norwegian wiki there is now discussion (no:Maldiskusjon:Reflist no:Wikipedia:Tinget#Noe_rart_med_.7B.7Breflist.7D.7D no:Wikipedia:Tinget#Hardkodete_styledefinisjoner_ute_av_styring) about the reflist-template. Some argue that this template should be deleted because it incorporates stylesheets. Stylesheets which should only be in stylesheets so it's possible to override fontsizes o.a. for the user? How is this solved at en:wp? Nsaa 07:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Font sizes can be overridden by the browser just the same if the inline sizes don't use absolute units.

Hypothesis: Things initially start with inline styles and after some trial time might get the seal of approval and get promoted to the CSS file includes. That's if they are common enough. Less common styles are either added to secondary, smaller scope CSS files, or stay inline for really limited scope. ¤ ehudshapira 00:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multi column functions is down

Can somebody who knows what is going fix the possibility for multicolumn reflists, as it is not working at the moment. Thanks Arnoutf 09:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It'd be useful if you stated which web browser you were using. Multi columns only works in Gecko-based browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, as far as I know. Tuxide 09:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I use Mozilla Firefox, and a 2 column reflist ({{reflist|2}}) still doesn't work for me. The references only go half-way across the page on articles like Al Gore and United States housing bubble. - auburnpilot talk 13:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scrollable reflist div

I've seen the following used to create a scrollable reference list with a limited height. It seems useful, any idea why it isn't part of the parameters for the reflist template? And what's that reflist4 class for if style does all the formatting? ¤ ehudshapira 04:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

<div class="reflist4" style="height: 300px; overflow: auto;
  padding: 3px; border: 1px solid #ababab" >
{{reflist|2}}
</div>
Scroll up a bit to the section labeled "Contained in a box" for some of the recent, relevant discussion. There was a template that did this but it was deleted for the reasons discussed above. --ElKevbo 04:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks.

[edit] Wikipedia's reference procedures damage article quality

Why has the readability of wikitext and regular text been damaged so severely by the use of reference templates and procedures? Why can't an article just [5] directly to a source? (no middle-men please) It's insanely redundant to list every author and the date of every source. And the superscripted font text messes up the spacing of the line above in my opera browser. I propose the drastic option of switching all references to a manual Sources section which the following article is a good example of: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. It's not possible to have a reference template and procedures that fits all legal, political, historical and other reference requirements. Please stop the readability damage insanity with references, it's a solution in search of a problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zen-master (talk • contribs) 12:26, August 17, 2007

Why can't an article just [6] directly to a source? (no middle-men please) -- For one thing, a lot of sources aren't on the internet, so can't be directly linked to. Even those that are might change location or disappear off the internet altogether. I personally hate the reference templates & never use them, but the basic <ref>...</ref> system works just fine. --Yksin 16:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the ref system and think it should be discontinued. Whenever you have a source that can be directly linked to you should directly link to it. What do you think of the Sources section idea? zen master T 17:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't like it at all. I like being able to look at an article & see complete bibliographic information about the source, without being forced to travel to a link in order to find that information. Assuming that the link hasn't moved or disappeared to begin with. When a source is online, one can still link to it directly within the <ref>...</ref>, but using links only without bibliographic info is in my opinion poor practice. I can understand people who don't know how to do proper citations doing it that way, but inevitably to make an article decent someone else has to come along & clean it up. In any case, numerous sources such as books & many journal, magazine, & newspaper articles (especially before 1995 or so) aren't on the internet anyway, & can't be linked to. --Yksin 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I think a general "Sources" section is ambiguous and imprecise. Readers should be able to tell, at a glance, exactly which source was used for each fact or assertion. Citations and sources should not be a guessing game. --ElKevbo 17:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Alleged precision and unambiguity should not come at the expense of readability. zen master T 17:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Yksin and ElKevbo. The only way articles will ever truly be reliable is if the reader can quickly verify the assertions made. Inline citations allow for this, and the more information you can provide about the source, the better. Think of it this way: a link you provided may work today, but if the website moves, restructures, or simply limits the time articles are available online, future readers have no way of finding that source. If you provide a link, title, date, author, and any other available detail, right next to the claim the source backs-up, I'll be able to contact the publisher/author and verify that claim if I can no longer find it online. It also allows for quick identification of sources, where as a general source section would leave me clueless if I'm looking to verify just one claim in an article. - auburnpilot talk 17:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
That should all be done in the Sources section and not be put inline next to every direct link. zen master T 17:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The non-ref template or html tag Sources section can have entries in sentence/paragraph form. The tiny superscripted text and lack of linking directly to the source damages article readability. zen master T 17:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the current setup is not ideal for casual readers and can be confusing. However, I can't think of a better way to do things right now. Full and correct bibliographic information for cited sources is paramount, even at the expense of a bit of usability or readability. Your suggestion of "just link to the source inline and have a 'Sources' section" does not allow us to precisely link material to non-web sources.
I recommend you look into Harvard Referencing for an example of an alternative referencing system that seems to work well for some Wikipedia editors while still meeting our information and bibliographic needs. --ElKevbo 18:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Readability is more important than how Harvard does references. I repeat, it's not possible to meet all possible reference requirements: legal, historical, scientific, etc etc. zen master T 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
"it's not possible to meet all possible reference requirements". Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean...any examples? - auburnpilot talk 18:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
"Harvard referencing" does not refer to "how Harvard does references" (except in a historical and etymological sense). It's the name of a style of referencing. Seriously - go read up on it. It may be interesting to you and illustrative of another approach to citations. It may even appeal to you or solve some of the problems that you perceive. --ElKevbo 18:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
My point is: no reference policy should damage readability. zen master T 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
If you can figure out a better way to do things that would not impact readability, please make suggestions! Your previous suggestion, however, does not make the grade. --ElKevbo 00:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Proper spacing with superscripts is the responsibility of the browser. If it doesn't work right, it's an issue for the browser developers. It might also be affected by CSS or things like browser font settings. Either way, I don't think that's a reason to avoid this sort of referencing, even if it were to create some unevenness.

As for arriving directly at an external URL instead of first having to jump to a link in the references section, this is something that could be made configurable in the Wikipedia settings. Another option (possible with Opera) is creating custom user-JS code that will tweak the page locally to do that. ¤ ehudshapira 00:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation style

Could we make {{reflist}} post the text of {{Citation style}} if there were no <ref></ref> on the article? And if we could should we? Jeepday (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Internet Explorer 7 issue

This tag does not work on my Internet Explorer version 7.0.5730.11. For example if you say {{reflist|#}} it seems to ignore the # and forces only 1 column to always appear. (:O) -Nima Baghaei talk · cont · email 23:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It only works on Firefox at the moment. See the documentation. –Pomte 23:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Technically, Mozilla-derived browsers, of which Firefox is one. (Webkit-derived browsers, also.) IE is behind the curve, and the doco mentions this. ⇔ ChristTrekker 18:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Documentation says it works with Safari, but it does not work with my Konqueror (Safari & Konqueror share KHTML). --Michalis Famelis (talk) 15:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Not true. Safari uses WebKit, a forked version of KHTML. Ms2ger 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XML ID syntax

Both the <ref> code and the {{Reflist}} code use XML ID syntax (all the IDs begin with _). Is it possible to rectify this (or is that too much to ask)? The Valid One 13:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This can't be changed here, the page you're looking for is MediaWiki:Cite reference link prefix. Ms2ger 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linking problem

The multi-columned references display fine for me, but the links from the numbers to the footnotes do not work properly for references that are not in the first column. For example, Bird#_note-97 doesn't lead me to note 97, but to some place in the external links. I don't know if this is specific to my browser (I use Safari 3). Lesgles (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#reflist.7C2_problem. –Pomte 20:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, although they aren't discussing quite the same problem that I have, which is related to how the link target is interpreted, rather than how it is displayed. I will continue the discussion over there. Thanks for the link. Lesgles (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] From Talk:Morayshire Railway

also posted at Wikipedia talk:Footnotes

This section contains footnotes. I beleive for consistency that [7] should be followed in this case. I will be reverting the page back to using "reflist" as the guideline suggests. --Rockfang (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This contradicts Template:reflist#Usage which states there is no concensus to use the small font version. There is no reason in this article to use the small font version. In addition Wikipedia:FN#Resizing_references indicates that small font has some disadvantages and conversely that some editors prefer the smaller font. I do not like the small font. In this article there are only ten referenced items, and I see not advantage for the smaller font. --Stewart (talk) 18:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
In this case, Template:reflist#Usage is incorrect. If you check the history of Wikipedia:FN a lot of stuff has been removed because people edited it without consensus. The "how to use" section is still on there because it has reached consensus. With regards to your small font point: sometimes small font does have disadvantages. Some people might have poor eyesight even with glasses and the smaller font could be harder for them to read. I would prefer to be consistent though. Even though list isn't extremely long at only 10 items, that number was reached as consensus at the most applicable guideline to follow: Wikipedia:FN --Rockfang (talk) 19:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
The difficulty I have with this is you have used a template which has its guidance notes and then informed me that the guidance notes are incorrect and superceded by a MoS elsewhere in Wikipedia. I will reluctantly bow to you edit, however it is important that the guidance notes with the {{reflist}} are corrected to reflect WP:FN otherwise others will follow the notes to the template and revert like I did. --Stewart (talk) 19:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)