Template talk:Reflist/Archive 2008

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Font size again

I've never really been happy with the small font used for references/footnotes, and yes I know that personally I have the option to (re-learn css and) edit my style sheet. I find the smaller font hard to read, and I have good corrected vision. Now I understand that print used small fonts for references/footnotes because it a) saved paper, and b) reduced problems with footnotes driving their own reference points ontothe next page, and c) clearley distinguished them from body text, but non of these apply to the online WP. Why then do do it? I would say (primarily) because we get an enormous (sometimes) quantity of non-flowing text that makes it hard to get to the other standard appendices, navboxen and categories - this belief is supported by the fact that we like columns, and by the temporary introduction of scrollboxen. I would suggest that the solution is, rather than trying to compress the footnotes/referneces, allow them to move to their natural place at the end of the article, certainly after the other standard appendices. (I also think we should rethink navboxen, but that's another story.) Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 07:46 12 September 2007 (GMT).

I personally prefer {{reflist}} or {{reflist|2}} to <references/> The size difference is not that significant when reading and it just looks more professional to me. A fairly well referenced article like Road {{reflist|2}} makes about a 30% difference in the size of the reference section. Just my thoughts. If there is neither on an article I will usely use {{reflist}} but I won't replace <references/> just to use {{reflist}} but will if I feel the need for {{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}}. Jeepday (talk) 02:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, Rich, one reason why people have web pages mimic dead-tree pages is their odd notion that web pages are paper. A thirty percent reduction in the number of centimetres taken up by notes translates into a zero percentage reduction in electrons, bytes, carbon emissions, etc. It doesn't even save any scrolling for most people, who sensibly don't read through the notes but instead pop down to a particular note and pop back up from it as curiosity demands. Reducing the size may indeed "look more professional"; to me this in turn means "look more as if it was done for the money". Speaking as a proud amateur I'd say it's a stupid idea, and I'm puzzled when some bot or robotic person arrives at an article on my watchlist and scrunches up the notes; one good thing I've noticed is that after I revert to gimmick-free "<references />", the (ro)bot seldom revisits, let alone kicks up a fuss about it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems odd to use small text for articles which only have a note or two. WP:FN at least says not to use reflist for 9 or fewer notes. Gimmetrow 17:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

When there are a lot of references, I find it easier to soak in the 4+ pieces of info for each reference when they're presented in the smaller font than the regular font. And I despised the temporary introduction of scroll boxes and hidden boxes. Do you also oppose the smaller font in navboxes? –Pomte 20:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I rarely pay any attention to navboxes. If they're closed, I rarely open them; if they're open, I rarely look inside; and I add one perhaps twice a year. So offhand I don't have any opinion on them. I do look at notes, and wonder why they are even slightly less easy to read than plain text is. -- Hoary (talk) 15:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Making an entire section of an article significantly harder to read seems like an odd way of treating your readers. Most readers are unlikely to know enough CSS to be able to rid themselves of what is a grievous source of harmful eyestrain. - Neparis (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Interstate 355

Why are there two ref 31s on this page? —Rob (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I only see one. - auburnpilot talk 18:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I can only see one reference 31 in the reference list. Can you please provide more detail. --Stewart ^(talk) 18:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologies - it seems to be moving up as I edit the page. Currently it's ref 28 that is duplicated at the top of the 2nd column in the References section. —Rob (talk) 19:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I am puzzled as I can only see one column containing all the references 1 to 55. --Stewart ^(talk) 19:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The mystery deepens! I have uploaded a screenshot to: [1]. Using Firefox 2.0.0.11. It's possible my browser is messed up. —Rob (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I am using IE6 with XP Pro. Have you get any Wikipedia stylesheets setup? --Stewart ^(talk) 19:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't think so... the only changes I've made are adding Twinkle, the edit intro quasi-hack, and adding popups. —Rob (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Image:AuburnPilotTestImage.jpg

AuburnPilot's view of Interstate 355

I'm using the same firefox version, but the reference section appears differently on my screen. I'm guessing it has something to do with your system's setup (or monobook.css if you have one setup). See the screenshot of how I see it, on the right. - auburnpilot talk 20:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Very strange. Nothing in monobook.css. Note that I wrote it in as {{reflist|2}}, so why you can't see 2 columns, I don't have the faintest idea. —Rob (talk) 20:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I did some testing using my test account, but I couldn't reproduce your results. I did figure out that my monobook (which imports User:AuburnPilot/adminnolupin/monobook.js) is causing the scrollbar that I see, and reformats the number of columns. Whether {{reflist}} is set to two, three, or four columns, mine will always appear with one column and a scrollbar. The short version: my settings are such that I can't really be of any help. Sorry, - auburnpilot talk 20:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(reset) It does appear to be a local issue... I tried it on FF 2.0.0.11 on Windows Server 2003 and it works OK. So maybe there's something up with the other browser. —Rob (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Multiple columns in IE

Can someone add some detail about what happens to multiple columns in non-supporting browsers, most importantly IE? Do they simple fall back to one column? -- Ddxc (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, default behaviour for properties they don't recognize. –Pomte —Preceding comment was added at 08:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Error in category

In case an error occurs, the article should appear in a category. -- Matthead Discuß 03:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Help reusing

I've stared up my own Wiki, and while it's really small so far, I wanted to include this template so references could be used in it. Apparently simply copying the code did not work. Could somebody better versed in MediaWiki help me out please? My wiki is at [2], and the reflist template is at [3]. Thanks in advance! --Gaeamil (talk) 04:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You have to install mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php. —Ms2ger (talk) 14:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Source Information

This document only appears to outline how to use Template:Reflist, but where can one obtain the source information for usage on other MediaWiki based encyclopedias? Terek (talk) 00:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The underlying code is <references />, which is available on any mediawiki install which includes cite.php. You can look at the source with the "source" button from the template page. Gimmetrow 02:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

So, if cite.php has been installed, one need only copy the source from "view source" on the template page onto a fresh Reflist Template on the desired Wiki to enable the template? Terek (talk) 04:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Other parts may depend on other things. The -mos-colum-width works on mozilla but maybe not on internet explorer, and references-small would need to be defined in some .css page. The protection and documentation templated might not exist either, and {{documentation}} uses a couple subtemplates. Gimmetrow 04:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

My employer seems to have already gone through this process, installing Template:Documentation, Template:Template.doc, Template:Reflist, Template:Cite web, and Template:Pp-template, with no success. What could be the potential trouble? Perhaps some templates were omitted, or something else? Terek (talk) 08:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Ignore all the extra stuff to begin with. Just have <references /> in the template, and see how that goes. It should allow any wikitext with cite.php "ref" tags and a {{reflist}} to produce something as a reference list, though it won't be multicolumn. If that works, start adding other pieces. Gimmetrow 08:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As per your suggestions, we installed just those parameters and it seems to be working partially; a reflist template appears in the appropriate section, although instead of giving the line-item citations like on Wikipedia all that appears is an upward arrow (↑). Where do we go from here - do we add the other pieces now? Terek (talk) 09:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that doesn't sound like it's working yet. Does the article text have a footnote, something like <ref>Here's a footnote</ref>? Gimmetrow 14:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It does, rather than appearing as [4] I have in-text citation as ^[1] though the footnote in the reflist itself is an arrow. Terek (talk) 09:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have {{cite web}}? A cite with just spaces would give the arrow alone.^[2] Gimmetrow 09:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My employer says to make it work, we need something called a "basic setup" and not something constructed for Wikipedia use. Could you interpret this? 76.197.6.15 (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's what I've been trying to tell you how to set up. Perhaps you need to explain some additional context. Are you trying to take wikitext straight from here and use it elsewhere? Or are you writing your own wikipages? If the latter, then skip using the cite templates and just write out the citations for a while until you see what, if anything, you really need. For instance, without {{cite web}}.^[3] Gimmetrow 01:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

^ External Link Footnote. Example. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
^
^ External Link Footnote Example 2. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.

Excellent, it does appear to be working! My utmost thanks, this has been troublesome for us for many months. A question or two remains, however - how does one decrease the size of the citations, or get the reflist template to split into two sections so as not to keep the reference section long? Terek (talk) 04:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}} for columns, if you're using this code. The font size is set here with a CSS class. Or just use standard html resizing: <div style="font-size:90%"><references/></div> Gimmetrow 04:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Footnote numbering

Something^[1] is^[2] causing^[3] the^[4] automatic numbering of footnotes to break in multicolumn lists. (I don't know why the first list isn't showing all the refs.)

^ External Link Footnote. Example. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
^
^ External Link Footnote Example 2. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.

^ Four
^ Five
^ Six
^ Seven

Here's a non-toy example: one-column, footnotes 1–38 vs. two columns, footnotes 1–37.
—WWoods (talk) 03:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I see 38 in both. After the named refs were changed, refs after references/ are not handled well. There is a reflist earlier on this page, so that's probably why the first one above is broken. Gimmetrow 04:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

See Music of Final Fantasy IV, Music of Final Fantasy IX. The second column repeats the first number twice. It autocorrects if you click on the tag to go to the reference for any reference in the first collumn (i.e., the "^") --PresN (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Save wikipedia harddrive space

<references/><noinclude>{{pp-template|small=yes}}{{documentation}}</noinclude>

--{{123Pie|Talk}} 20:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

If you mean remove the column code, I don't think it would go over well. Gimmetrow 20:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I see your point there. – [[123Pie|Talk]] 20:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling reflist?

Rationale

This article has just had scrollbars added to its reflist. The addition of a "scrolling" parameter will make such a feature easy to implement, and standardise the appearance of scrolling windows.

Implementation

Copy the content of template:reflist/editprotected to this template.

Utilisation

Once implemented, a references section can be made scrolling by setting the parameter scrolling=yes.

Proposed by: Verisimilus T 21:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, scrolling reflists aren't used because they screw up printing. --Golbez (talk) 21:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

And mirrors, and other things. They're explicitly prohibited by WP:CITE, if I recall correctly. Kirill 22:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 11#Template:Scrollref for past consensus against this feature. –Pomte 22:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Disabled edit-protected request per previous discussions on this topic. - auburnpilot talk 23:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Scroll ref created using monobook.js code.

Incidentally, I tested some code, which was written by Voice of All (talk · contribs), and if you add this to your monobook.js page, you should have a scroll reflist. It worked for me; see the image at right. - auburnpilot talk 23:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Broken

The template now appears to be broken. Looking at the history shows it hasn't been changed since last year so it looks like one of the templates it uses has been changed and broken. Could someone who knows how these templates work have a look? --JD554 (talk) 12:57, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

In what way is it broken? It looks fine to me. What browser and platform are you using? Verisimilus T 13:28, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I just noticed the same thing. Check on Bradley Davies, for example. It's showing:

Cite error: Invalid <references group="" /> tag; group name "" not defined in <ref>

Weird. — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 13:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem means it is an "error" with the <ref> module, not this template. And the error message is appearing on that article because it doesn't contain any references! Verisimilus T 13:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It didn't in this past. Alot of users go back and add to new articles with particular references at a later date. Any ideas on a fix.Londo 06 13:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Aye, it didn't. Has something changed in the preprocessor or something? — HelloAnnyong ^{(say whaaat?!)} 14:03, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist}} uses <references/>. The change is in <references/> which now produces an error message if there are no earlier references on the page. Are there other known changes than this? PrimeHunter (talk) 14:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

bugzilla entry of this issue. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Could someone point to an article with this issue? I checked a few articles and couldn't find it. Does this have anything to do with the "group" parameter? I didn't see a formal announcement about the code changes adding the "group" parameter to ref tags, so any articles which used it "early" might have been tripped up by some code fixes. Gimmetrow 20:06, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

The error message has changed to the more informative "Cite error: No <ref> tags found". It's still on Bradley Davies and you can make it yourself by just placing <references/> on any page without <ref> and preview. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, that's clearly a change in cite.php or dependent code. Gimmetrow 20:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Apparently changes here. The template is indeed broken, as it falsely shows an error when no references are available. It should show no references when none are available, but it's not an error, it's there to encourage editors to add references and also make it show when references are added, as many pages are discovered with references that don't show up because no {{reflist}}/reference in called in Reference section. SunCreator (talk) 14:30, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Self-reference also has this problem now, with a big ugly Cite error: No <ref> tags found in red. I don't see the point with that message unless it's very bad if the template is there without any references? It would be nice if someone could remove the error? :) --Apis O-tang (talk) 00:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually removed it from that page, can't see it in history either anymore so maybe it got fixed?--Apis O-tang (talk) 00:16, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was fixed: [5]. PrimeHunter (talk) 02:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Still Broken

~~Found on Heavy.com. SunCreator (talk) 14:07, 10 April 2008 (UTC)~~. Found that article to have issues with references. SunCreator (talk) 12:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

found a bug in the template

I am writing an offline parser which keeps stumbling over a typo in this template. It isn't noticeable on Wikipedia as it is removed in the HtmlTidy stage but it is still technically there and is stopping my output from validating. If an administrator could make the change that would be much appreciated.

At the end of the line, after the text column-count:, the end-braces }};" need to be moved outside of the quotes ;"}} so that the style attribute is closed inside the template.

Thanks in advance,

CosmicBen (talk) 11:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Done That was some very odd code, and I don't like relying on the html tidy feature to fix errors on such a high use template. Thanks for noticing it. --CapitalR (talk) 16:08, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Parser / reflist interaction bug?

There seems to be a problem with putting a template parameter between <ref> tags.

For example:

{{User:Pee Tern/Sandbox/Template/reflistparambug
|parameter = test data
}}
{{Reflist}}

Produces:

Parameter value: test data.

As a reference: ^[1].

^ External Link Footnote. Example. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
^
^ External Link Footnote Example 2. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.

AND !!

Parameter value: test data.

As a reference: <ref>test data</ref>.
{{Reflist}}

Then produces:

Parameter value: test data.

As a reference: ^[2].

^ External Link Footnote. Example. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.
^
^ External Link Footnote Example 2. Retrieved on 2008-02-17.

Reflist being messed up altogether by the earlier template call !!

Or have I missed the obvious somewhere ?

Peet Ern (talk) 02:09, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The parser usually doesn't touch the contents of XML-like tags of extensions, in terms of template parameters. As a workaround, you can use the #tag magic word instead: see Wikipedia:FOOTNOTE#Known bugs. Gracenotes^T § 04:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Gracenotes. Peet Ern (talk) 04:26, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Resolved.

Categories: Template talk archives