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Preservation of original punctuation?

Greetings and felicitations. I thought I recently came across a passage in the MOS or similar document that preservation of a reference's title's original punctuation was not necessary (at least to some degree), but I can't find it. Did I hallucinate it or conflate it with something else? —DocWatson42 (talk) 05:44, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

We are certainly allowed to convert curly quotes to straight quotes. More of a gray area: If a work has a title and a subtitle, are we allowed to standardize the punctuation between them (common choices I've seen include a colon, period, or dash, but sometimes they are just separated by whitespace)? What about (the case I think DW has in mind) changing double quotes to single quotes to avoid nested double quotes? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

The first and last cases I do automatically (patrolling "quote=" fields for mistakes is a small specialty of mine). For subtitles (in English) I assume that the punctuation is a colon unless the source itself states otherwise. I maintain archaic punctuation (e.g. semicolon em dash) when I come across it. I also convert hyphens to em and en dashes where appropriate (I know that German uses en dashes for ranges, but I don't know enough about French punctuation to make changes), and the same for "x" to multiplication signs. I'm wondering about any other cases (and your thoughts on the preceding types), and if there actually is or was such a statement, or a statement against it. —DocWatson42 (talk) 07:10, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

And if corrections are permitted (as per Wikipedia:Quotations#Formatting: "Trivial spelling or typographical errors that do not affect the intended meaning may be silently corrected."). (I'm opposed to correcting the spelling of titles, so that the reference is searchable/reproducible.) —DocWatson42 (talk) 07:22, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

That passage refers to quoted text, it doesn't refer to the titles of cited works and I'd say that it shouldn't apply there. However, changing the type of quotation marks and dashes used within titles is trivial, happens all the time, and is nothing to worry about. (Indeed, changing curly to straight quotation marks is needed per our MOS and changing double to single ones is often needed to ensure proper nesting.) Gawaon (talk) 08:17, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Pardon me—I meant in the same way as Wikipedia:Quotations#Formatting, not that that applied directly. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:52, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

MOS:CONFORMTITLE may be what you have in mind? That section also explicitly states that MOS:CONFORM applies to titles too. Gawaon (talk) 08:21, 12 November 2025 (UTC)

Basically, yes. Thank you. ^_^ —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:53, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

These guidelines say that "general references" (vs. citations) belong in References?)

In the "Citation types" section, under "general references" it says: "A general reference is a citation that supports content, but is not linked to any particular piece of material in the article through an inline citation. General references are usually listed at the end of the article in a References section."

Is this right? I've never heard of putting a "general" reference (i.e. not a source used to verify specific content in the text) in a References section with other citations. Where in the numerical list would it even go? Everything else that I've seen/read indicates that any material that isn't a citation actually linked to the article should go in a separate section (further reading, external links, etc.).

Can anyone clarify? Is it possible that this is outdated information? BetsyRogers (talk) 23:00, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

You see them a lot on older articles. It is better than nothing so is not actually deprecated. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:27, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Thanks. (I was editing my question when you replied, just to clarify a bit, but it's still the same question.) But is that still a current recommendation? If not, couldn't it be updated and include a footnote saying basically what you said? BetsyRogers (talk) 23:50, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

See the following sentence about "underdeveloped articles" clarify - it's better than nothing but not typical for higher quality articles. As WP:GENREF notes, people will generally rework them as an article improves. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:42, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Splitting the references into two sections: Primary and secondary sources

What do folks think about this effort to indicate primary sources with a symbol, and place them in their own separate section? It's like a little ghetto for primary sources. As far as I know, no other editor has used this style. I don't think it serves the reader who will end up questioning whether the primary sources are suitable. In my view, the references should be presented all together, no matter whether they are primary, secondary, tertiary or whatever. The job of questioning whether a primary source is appropriate should be the responsibility of the Wikipedia editor who cites it, not the reader. Binksternet (talk) 17:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't understand the point of segregating sources by these definitions and it doesn't seem to be a useful distinction for readers. (Readers who aware of the types of sources can identify them for themselves.) Schazjmd (talk) 17:55, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I adapted this style from The Amazing Digital Circus, which is a Good article so I believed it to be a good example of a sourcing style to follow. Popturtle (talk) 18:17, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't make sense to me in that article either. @Skyshifter:, why did you choose that organization of citations in The Amazing Digital Circus? Schazjmd (talk) 18:24, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the article even gets the classification of primary or secondary correct. For example, the first so-called primarysecondary source is basically the author, Gerald Dih, giving his opinion about whether the album is any good. That makes it a primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I want to mention that splitting primary and secondary sources in the bibliography is common in articles on classical studies. I would even say that doing so is a best practice. Ifly6 (talk) 19:51, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

OTOH, it probably makes more sense in an academic discipline with a clear and useful distinction between the types, versus Wikipedia where "primary" too often means "I don't like this source so I want to denigrate it in the hope it will be removed" or "I don't like this article, so I'll claim the sources are primary which means it doesn't pass WP:N". Anomie⚔ 01:51, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Yea it's also often the case in academic classical studies that the bibliography includes only modern sources. You're just supposed to know what the citations refer to for the ancient ones. Ifly6 (talk) 03:26, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree the distinction makes indeed a lot of sense when dealing with older historical or literary topics, where "primary" effectively means something like "published more than 300 (or 1000) years ago". It makes less sense when referring to recent topics, where the distinction between primary and secondary is much less sharp. Gawaon (talk) 08:38, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

In any case, regardless of whether or not one groups them in different sections in the bibliography, this marking of primary sources with something like a dagger symbol seems highly unusual and I can't think of any good purpose it could serve. If it's supposed to signal "that's a primary source, don't trust it!" then, of course, it's actually the editors' job to figure out whether a source seems reliable enough to use in the article or not. If yes, then no special "warning" symbol is needed; if no, then it shouldn't be used at all. Gawaon (talk) 08:43, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd just like to add that in the sciences the majority of references you'll see in academic writing are, in fact, primary sources. A secondary source, e.g. a review article, is generally indicated as such. For example, after the title you'll often see "(Review)" added in parentheses. Personally I'm used to seeing mostly primary sources, but I can see the rationale of not emphasizing them here since it's a more general audience. BetsyRogers (talk) 00:02, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

No, that's not how these terms are used, check out WP:PSTS if you didn't yet. Any academic piece of writing must be written with some distance to the subject matter, which makes it secondary. If it's primary (say the autobiography of someone directly involved), then it's not strictly speaking academic writing. Primary literature usually isn't peer-reviewed, while academic (secondary) literature is. As usual, there are borderline cases, but the general distinction is clear enough. Gawaon (talk) 08:23, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

No, that's not how these terms are used You left out "on Wikipedia". We have co-opted these terms and given them somewhat different meanings and implications. Anomie⚔ 13:25, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

You may have a point there, especially when it comes to STEM fields where "primary sources" in our sense don't really exist. However, I think that our usage is close enough to the usage established in history, literature, and other humanities, where primary sources are generally non-academic (say a novel about which researchers may write, or letters and diaries from people directly involved in a historical event). Gawaon (talk) 15:59, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

We still have differences, and we don't even agree on them. For example, some consider editorially reviewed news articles about current events as secondary, while others insist they're primary and that secondary sources won't show up until years later. Personally I think we'd do best to demote WP:PSTS to an essay and have the actual policies and guidelines focus on what really matters like "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" instead of ever mentioning the words "primary" or "secondary". But that's unlikely to ever happen, since too many people like being able to say "it's primary" to mean "I don't like this source for some reason" rather than actually looking into reliability and independence. Anomie⚔ 17:24, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Apparently there are field-specific definitions of a primary source. But using Wikipedia's definition of a primary source (which I checked out a long ago), any published original research is a primary source.

From #Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources:

"Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved." 

If someone does the research themselves, analyzes the data, draws conclusions from it, and publishes it, then they are definitely directly involved. I've asked other editors about this to be sure I understood Wikipedia's definition of primary sources, and everyone I've asked so far has concurred that research papers are a primary source. BetsyRogers (talk) 01:48, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

But by that interpretation, wouldn't a historian who researched an event or period also produce "primary sources" because they did the research themselves (visiting archives, studying original sources from those involved or from the time it happened, etc.), then drawing their conclusions and publishing their findings? This would make the distinction between "primary" and "secondary sources" that's usual in history and other humanities completely disappear (merging them both into "primary sources"), so consider me unconvinced. Gawaon (talk) 08:17, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just explaining what constitutes a primary source in scientific fields. I guess if you traveled back in time to directly observe an event or period, then traveled back to the present and published your findings, that would be a primary source. (Alternatively, and with much less effort, you could just Google "what is a primary source in science"). BetsyRogers (talk) 08:33, 18 November 2025 (UTC)

This is useless and I don't see a reason for it but I also don't see a reason to prohibit it. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:53, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

Under WP:CITEVAR, I think it would be difficult to prohibit it (as a general case; getting it removed from a single article would require only an ordinary, consensus-oriented discussion on the article's talk page).

But mostly I wonder: @Popturtle, when you classified the sources, were you remembering that Secondary does not mean independent, and that All sources are primary for something? Because when I look at the lists, it seems to me that you've actually split Wikipedia:Independent sources vs non-independent sources, rather than primary vs secondary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I was not thinking about that and more so grouped them based on independence, I'll combine the sources back together in one list then. Popturtle (talk) 09:17, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

This seems an impossible suggestion to me. Many empirical empirical articles start with a background/literature section making use of that part a secondary source; while it continues presenting new empirical data which makes use of that part a primary source. Thus a single paper can be used in the same wiki article as both a secondary and a primary source. It becomes even more complicated when we look at synthesis from the literature in such articles which can be argued to be either primary (especially if creative combinations are made) or secondary if it is a structured logical addition of what is already known. My head already hurts thinking of all the endless discussion this idea is going to provoke. Arnoutf (talk) 18:22, 17 November 2025 (UTC)

Sources with long titles?

It used to be a common style for newspaper headlines to be quite long. A good example would be:

"BIG MOTOR RACE MAY BE REPEATED; Contestants in Morris Park Event Believe Record Can Be Beaten. HOW MILEAGE WAS FIGURED Track Will Be In Better Condition a Month Later -- Race Was Notably Free from Serious Accidents". 1907-09-09. Retrieved 2025-12-01.

Any thoughts on how to cite these? What I've been tending to do is just cite the first fragment, i.e.:

"Big Motor Race May be Repeated". 1907-09-09. Retrieved 2025-12-01.

Does that seem reasonable? Maybe add a ... to the title? RoySmith (talk) 15:48, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

@RoySmith Trim it to what you say. This happens sometimes when there are multiple different level headings. If you look at the original article the “Big Motor Race May Be Repeated” is the large, obvious heading. PARAKANYAA (talk) 17:32, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I looked up published citation guides' advice on this a couple of weeks ago when I came across a very old book where the title took some double digit number of line on the front page which seemed absurd to offer in the citation. Some guides (APA) said to cite the whole title no matter how long for the full citation and some (Chiacgo) said to shorten long titles where "appropriate" but I don't recall seeing a specific cutoff point. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:46, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, it's very reasonable. Subtitles do not generally have to be included; when the title including subtitles is too long, I'd use just the main title. This article seems to have four subtitles in addition to the main title. How many of them to include is ultimately up to you, but just giving the main one should indeed be sufficient. Gawaon (talk) 07:01, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I think it is allowed to omit subtitles, but not required. Sometimes I'll include a subtitle when it makes more obvious what is in the reference and why it's relevant to the article, such as a subtitle that includes the subject's name for a biography. Four subtitles is definitely too many to include, and they look more like a table of contents than subtitles anyway. So in this case, just the main title would be best. Another situation where this comes up is very old books, where it might not even be clear where the main title ends and the subtitles start, but you have to truncate it somewhere. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:48, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

how to add this insert to my draft

how to add this insert to my draft (for example, the king of England from such to such a year is the predecessor/ successor) if something is not the king but the baron, I make an example of the king to make it clearer what I'm talking about Smart Andrew (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

@Smart Andrew, if you still need an answer to this question, please ask at the Wikipedia:Teahouse. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Small improvement to "source capitalization" sentence?

WP:CITESTYLE includes this guidance: "Preserving the capitalization style of each individual source is not considered a consistent style." That seems a bit ambiguous, since editors could interpret "preserving" as:

a) The cap style found in a "References" section when the editor encounters the article (guidance similar to MOS:STYLEVAR); or

b) The cap style found within the source (that is, how the source styles its own title)

The RfC from early 2025 that established this guideline clarifies that it is the latter. MOS experts that participated in the RfC may not see any ambiguity, but this style question comes up a lot in reviews (GA, PR, FA) so making it crystal clear to non-MOS experts may be helpful. Would it be an improvement to re-word this green sentence to something like: "Preserving the capitalization style that each individual source uses for itself is not considered a consistent style."? Noleander (talk) 13:52, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Sounds acceptable, though I'm not sure it's really needed. Gawaon (talk) 14:50, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm fine with that. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 14:51, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

We could also link to the RFC, maybe under the words "not considered". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:33, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I believe the sentence already has a footnote that links to the RFC. Not sure if that satisfies your desire or not. Noleander (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Seeing no objections, I made the change. I also moved the footnote (which linked to the RfC that established the guidance) from the middle of the sentence to the end. Noleander (talk) 15:47, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

WMF seeking feedback on Reference Check

Hi all! Relatively few newcomers know, let alone remember, to cite the content they are adding. In response, the WMF's Editing team has been working on developing Reference Check, a feature which prompts new editors to add citations before they publish an edit adding content to an article. We're hoping to bring it to English Wikipedia soon with an initial A/B test so that we can evaluate its impact and address any issues that arise. As the first stage of that, we wanted to reach out to gather your input on the feature and experiment's design.

Background

Reference Check is the first of a new set of features called Edit Checks, which aim to:

1. Give newcomers guidance while they are in the process of making an edit to help them abide by Wikipedia's policies and guidelines.
2. Reduce the amount of effort and attention experienced editors need to allocate toward addressing preventable damage.

In this case, it aims to address the problem that only 19% of edits adding content by new editors (those with ≤100 edits) include a reference. It has been in development since 2023, and is now deployed on every other language edition except for English.

How it works

Reference Check

Reference Check activates when a new editor adds a large amount of text in VisualEditor (on desktop or mobile) in an edit and clicks on publish without adding a citation. It creates a notice (see screenshot) prompting the editor to add a citation. If they choose to do so, it opens up the "Add a citation" box, and if they decline, it asks them to specify why, which is then recorded (and we intend will eventually be available for other editors to review).

Our research from other languages shows a positive impact: In an A/B test, editors who were shown the check were more than twice as likely to make an edit that included a reference, as well as less likely to be reverted and more likely to stick around and keep editing.

There have been several prior discussions where some editors have expressed interest in deploying it here, and we're now looking to follow up on those and complete the deployment in the near future.

Try it out

To test Reference Check, follow these steps:

1. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moon&veaction=edit&ecenable=1 (or any other article in VisualEditor with &ecenable=1 added to the URL)
2. Create a new paragraph that is at least 50 characters long without adding a citation.
3. Press the "Publish changes…" button.
4. Interact with the prompt that appears.

Be sure not to click "Publish changes" (without the ...) from the "Save your changes" screen so that you don't actually publish the test edit.

Call for feedback

We’re hoping to run an A/B test showing the feature to a sample of newcomers who have made ≤100 edits so that we can evaluate its impact and address any issues that arise. We're interested to know what you think of this approach. Overall, does the check seem like something that would benefit the project? Is there anything you'd want us to look for or keep in mind during the test? (The current metrics we plan to track are documented on Phabricator.) We also continue to be open to more general feedback if there's anything else that testing it out brings to mind.

We'd also like to highlight that there are Community Configuration settings available for Reference Check, which allow any admin to adjust things like how many characters need to be added for the check to activate. Feel free to discuss existing settings options that you'd prefer, or to let us know if there are additional settings you'd like us to introduce.

We'll follow up after gathering input with next steps. And thanks as always for your collaboration!

Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 18:01, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Notified: WP:Village pump (proposals), WT:Teahouse, WT:WikiProject Usability, Help talk:Referencing for beginners, WT:Reliable sources, WT:Verifiability. Sdkb-WMF ^talk 18:10, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

It looks for one citation per paragraph, which is perhaps the best that can be easily managed and certainly better than nothing, but will often be inadequate.

The four options offered when you decline to add a citation are insufficient. In particular, expanding from a preexisting source is quite common. Ideally when a new paragraph is used a NAMEDREF should be repeated, but newcomers may not expect that and an option that provides the opportunity to easily reuse an existing reference after an initial no is worth considering.

Some articles will not have any lead citations, bit of an edge case and maybe not worth the bother of an extra option but rewriting of leads is sometimes done by new users, especially if the existing one is self-evidently inadequate.

The other option offers no chance for further explanation which might be useful if for no other reason the data collection.

Because Moon is semi'd the instructions won't work for unregistered users, I employed courtesy of Special:Random, but may be worth adjusting the instructions. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 19:18, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing these thoughts; they are all very helpful!

For making it easier to reuse references, we'll discuss this and follow up with any updates.

For articles without lead citations, one of the Community Configuration options, ignoreLeadSection, deactivates the check there.

For the other option, the team had initially decided not to prioritize that because of the complexity it'd introduce, but it remains a possible future enhancement. @PPelberg (WMF) has created phab:T405683 to document that work.

Cheers, Sdkb-WMF ^talk 22:50, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

It shouldn't trigger on disambiguation pages or redirects, which do not need references and asking for them may confuse new editors. Thryduulf (talk) 21:23, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Probably also pages tagged as a set index, as for example many chemical compounds are 50 characters long even without an accompanying description. Also applies equally to certain other pages that are purely navigational like lists of lists though implementation may be too difficult in practice and users are allowed to select no when queried as whether a reference is needed so maybe not that big a deal though data is limited. 184.152.65.118 (talk) 22:28, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

The check will not run on list items, so it shouldn't show on disambiguation pages. The newly-added paragraph has to be a root-level paragraph. ESanders (WMF) (talk) 11:15, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

This seems like a very useful tool, thank you to all those involved in making it. Out of curiosity, what does it look like when an editor chooses not to add a reference? Is the edit tagged with the reason they gave? Toadspike [Talk] 22:33, 26 September 2025 (UTC)

Great questions, @Toadspike. Responses below. Please let me know what (if any) new questions this brings to mind or leaves unanswered...

...what does it look like when an editor chooses not to add a reference?

When someone elects not to add a reference, Reference Check will ask them to express why (see screenshot).

Reference Check mobile decline survey

Is the edit tagged with the reason they gave?

At present, no. The reason someone gave is not visible on-wiki. Although, we are considering re-introducing^[1] this functionality in the future via T405132.

And I'm glad to know you see promise in the tool!

---

1. Emphasis on "re-introducing" because early in the development of Reference Check it was possible to see on-wiki why someone declined to add a Reference. Although, this tagging approach lost its meaning when it became possible for multiple Checks (of the same or different types) to become activated within a single edit. PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, PPelberg. I think it would be really great if we could make the reason visible to other editors. Toadspike [Talk] 05:01, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Yay to A/B testing this!

One of the recurring concerns is to what share of new contributions are improved vs what share are introducing more subtle mistakes. I dont expect too many problematic subtle mistakes here, but getting a list of edits in the two groups and allowing the community to compare might be nice. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:53, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

...getting a list of edits in the two groups and allowing the community to compare might be nice.

Good call. And you know what, I think generating the lists of edits you described above will be possible using the Edit Check edit tags that are already in place...

editcheck-references: ought to return a list of edits that meet the conditions for Reference Check to be shown had it been enabled

editcheck-references-shown: ought to return a list of edits in which Reference Check was actually shown to someone in the course of publishing an edit

@DLynch (WMF): can you please confirm the above is accurate? And assuming David confirms the above to be true, @Femke do these two tags sounds like they'll offer the info. you think would be helpful for volunteers to see?

Yay to A/B testing this!

We're happy to know the prospect of this is exciting to you too ^ _ ^ PPelberg (WMF) (talk) 17:09, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that looks correct. (And thus, effectively, editcheck-references + editcheck-references-shown on the same revision should mean a revision where someone was asked to add a reference and chose not to.) DLynch (WMF) (talk) 17:15, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that should work! —Femke 🐦 (talk) 20:10, 15 October 2025 (UTC)

Update

Hi all! Based on the discussion above, we're planning to move ahead with the A/B test. The test is scheduled to run from Wednesday, 5 November 2025 to approximately 17 December 2025, after which we'll take some time to analyze the results, share them with you all, and decide with you how/if to enable the feature. Thanks for all your feedback above! We'll continue to monitor this thread, so if anything else comes to mind or you notice anything during the test, please let us know! Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 21:31, 3 November 2025 (UTC)

In preparation for this, my colleague @DLynch (WMF) has suggested some community configuration settings that you might want to adopt. Any admin can implement them if they look good to you — courtesy pinging those from the discussion above, @Thryduulf, @Femke, and (not an admin when you commented above but one now!) @Toadspike. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 04:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

The synopsis section also doesn't require sources (as the work itself is considered the source). So that might be one to add too. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 07:58, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Agree, we'll want some synonyms like "Plot" as well. Toadspike [Talk] 08:55, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

@Thryduulf, Femke, and Toadspike: Those settings (or whatever other ones you decide to adopt — the community configuration settings are yours to customize how you see fit!) are all fine by us. Feel free to implement them at will on the MediaWiki page. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 15:41, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

And like I said in that suggestion on the message's talk page, I'm happy to make the actual edit for you if you don't feel comfortable adding the JSON yourself -- I just don't want to step on anyone's toes by unilaterally running ahead with that. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 22:10, 5 November 2025 (UTC)

I've created the page MediaWiki:Editcheck-config.json. Please let me know if I've done it correctly. I'll add to it if/when I come across more synonyms. Am I correct in assuming that it's not case-sensitive? Toadspike [Talk] 15:36, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, the section matching is case-insensitive. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 16:00, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

I'm assuming there's a way to exclude disambiguation pages and set index articles? More complicated will be name pages, which seem to use a wide variety of templates. Toadspike [Talk] 15:51, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

It should hopefully not show up on those pages, since (per Ed above) it doesn't trigger on list items. As a backup, we are exploring ways to suppress the feature on pages based on category (see phab:T347775), but that hasn't been implemented yet. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 22:16, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Awesome. Are tables also excluded? I assume they are not "root level paragraphs". Toadspike [Talk] 07:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

That's right, table cell contents won't be included. DLynch (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)

• Deployed. The A/B test has now begun. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 23:48, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Early results

Hi all! I wanted to share that we have published some early data from the test; feel free to check it out on MediaWiki and let us know if you have any thoughts! We'll follow up next month to share the final report on the test once it's ready. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 23:05, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Does WP:CITEVAR prohibit adding metadata to citations?

Over at my talk page, @David Eppstein claims that WP:CITEVAR prohibits Citation Bot from adding metadata identifiers (specifically bibcode and ISBN) to citations because Editors should not attempt to change an article's established citation style... without first seeking consensus for the change. I have always considered this to fall under WP:CITEVARYES point 1, improving existing citations by adding missing information. I'd love to hear what other people think about this. Jay8g [V•T•E] 23:51, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

CITEVARYES covers adding missing essential information necessary to identify a source. Elements like bibcodes are optional, so an established consistent style that doesn't include them is covered by CITEVAR. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Specifically, Jay8g is insisting on adding identifiers that do not provide a unique resource beyond the metadata that is already in (or should already be in) the article. If you go to the page linked by these identifiers, you only see the same information you already saw in the reference. There is no copy of the reference itself to be found there, nor a review, abstract, or other additional information. (This is true for some bibcodes, but not all; I have no objection to adding those bibcodes that provide full reference text.) The only function of these identifiers is to sit there as incomprehensible lumps in the reference and to make it difficult for readers to find the links that might lead them to actual copies of the reference. Also, since Jay8g moved this from User talk:Citation bot without providing the context there, here are some past links to similar discussions copied from the Citation bot discussion: User talk:Citation bot/Archive 41#Useless bibcodes redux and User talk:Citation bot/Archive 42#Bad pmid —David Eppstein (talk) 00:22, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm not "insisting on" doing anything, and I think it's about time to apply WP:AGF in this and other Citation Bot-related discussions. I'm attempting to find a consensus, which no one has been able to show so far (those threads don't have anything close to a consensus to not include these identifiers; if they did, Citation Bot would have been changed to stop including them long ago. Jay8g [V•T•E] 00:28, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Surely the onus should be to find consensus to always include this useless cruft, not to force them in without consensus to exclude them. So tell me: where is that consensus? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:35, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Considering that the bot (and editors) have been doing this for years without significant opposition, it seems to have been a case of WP:SILENCE. Now that you have brought these concerns to my attention, I'm trying to determine that consensus. But I can't just ask for a major change to the way Citation Bot operates because one person has an issue with it; no one's going to be willing to implement that, especially considering that the first discussion you linked includes significant support from other editors to include this information. And one bot's talk page isn't the right place to have this discussion, which is why I brought it to a venue that is hopefully more well-attended. Jay8g [V•T•E] 00:42, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

If you think this is one person and that there has been no past opposition then you haven't even read the linked past discussions. Others with similar opinions there include Jacobolus and Johnjbarton. You might also notice that Citation bot has not been adding s2cid identifiers to articles for quite a while, as a result of similar discussions. It also stopped adding bibcodes pointing only to arXiv preprints, again as a result of similar past discussions. In any case, the argument that we've been doing this useless thing so long that we have to keep doing it comes across to me as pretty weak. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:57, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I was trying to avoid WP:CANVASS, but per that discussion, I'll also ping @Headbomb, @Modest Genius, @Jo-Jo Eumerus, and @21.Andromedae so that we ping everyone involved in that discussion.

The point isn't that we have to keep doing it. The point is that you keep implying there is consensus against doing it, which does not currently appear to be the case. Jay8g [V•T•E] 01:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I oppose automatically adding (or removing) bibcodes. Some (older?) astronomy articles are archived on the bibcode site, but otherwise the links are counterproductive for me and churning the page for that purpose is more wasting time. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:14, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

My subjective personal impression is that in the long term on pages where humans are also paying attention Citation Bot is about 30% substantively useful changes, 30% harmlessly trivial changes, 10% mistakes, and 30% spam. I consider it good general practice to block the bot from pages which are being actively curated by humans, especially if the bot had previously done a pass through the page, because it routinely screws up or adds new spam nonsense, and carefully checking its changes is mostly a waste of time.

Rarely bibcodes contain a full-text copy of the source; these should be included on pages. (Sometimes the bibcode even leads to the only online copy of a source.) The vast majority of bibcodes, PMIDs, etc. added by Citation Bot are pure spam, a pointless distraction for humans containing no information which wasn't already included in the Wikipedia citation. They might be useful to someone trying to build a machine-readable database of citation metadata, but Wikipedia isn't the right venue – perhaps try adding it to Wikidata or something. It's not reasonable to call this "missing information", and these should be left out, especially where there's a local editor preference against them. I would be in favor of a policy change to the effect that all bibcodes ever added to English Wikipedia by bots should be removed, and the privilege of adding bibcodes to citation metadata should be reserved for humans. –jacobolus (t) 01:13, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I think that Wikidata was looking at porting all citations over but it would be roughly the size of the present Wikidata, so they can't. Until a Wikicitation is created, it would be best to keep bibcodes alive on Wikipedia. Most readers are not upset by some extra characters in the citations at the bottom. Abductive (reasoning) 02:58, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

@Abductive The issue discussed here is not "should bibcodes be removed", but "should bibcodes be automatically added by bots". They have very limited value so why add more? Johnjbarton (talk) 03:09, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm okay with limited value, and I'm also okay with editors applying deny=citation_bot to articles that they care deeply about. Abductive (reasoning) 03:11, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Maybe we can get the bot to add deny=citation_bot. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:36, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I only added it myself following the second time the bot was run, by the same editor, producing the same erroneous citation, after I had reverted it the first time and reported the error. (On circle packing theorem, which I am in the middle of a major expansion of. I might consider making the exclusion more local to the specific problematic citation once the article is more stable again. The bigger problem was actual incorrect metadata, not merely useless ids.) —David Eppstein (talk) 06:10, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I feel you. Just last week I asked over at the Village Pump about the GNIS 4 template being embedded into infoboxes of US locales. This serves no useful purpose at all, and GNIS is riddled with errors. Nobody responded to me. At least here editors can deny the bot. Abductive (reasoning) 10:23, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

That would Meta:Shared citations ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:56, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Did you really mean: Meta:WikiCite/Shared Citations?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:18, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk yes thank you! This can also be voted on in Meta:Community Wishlist/W240 ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:26, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

To answer the question in the section heading:

No, WP:CITEVAR doesn't prohibit the addition of various id numbers and other metadata about sources. CITEVAR neither demands nor prohibits these things, just like it neither demands nor prohibits the inclusion of an author's full name, and just like it neither demands nor prohibits having the citations presented in green text. CITEVAR, like its cousins WP:ENGVAR and WP:STYLEVAR, is trying to prevent edit wars. Therefore, the CITEVAR rules are:

• Thou shalt not edit war.
• If you believe that an edit will change the style in a potentially disputable fashion, then you should discuss your planned changes on the talk page first, and consensus wins. CITEVAR provides a short list of style changes that you should expect to be disputed, as well as some that the community would find surprising if someone objected to them.
• Zero shall be the number of edit wars that thou shall count.
• If you believe that the change to the style will not be objected to (i.e., by editors actually working on that article, not with someone saying "I dispute that for every single article on Wikipedia"), then you can Wikipedia:Be bold.
• The number of edit wars shall be zero.
• If an actual objection appears, the citation style should be discussed (like civilized human beings, or if that seems too difficult, like Santa Claus is watching you right now) on the Talk: page, and consensus wins (include, exclude, change, don't change – CITEVAR does not care, so long as an agreement is reached).
• Neither shalt thou tempt thy fellow editors to edit war.
• If editors realio, trulio cannot reach an agreement (a fairly rare occurrence), then the CITEVAR specifies a default formatting scheme.
• Do not edit war.

I would suggest that the existence of a bot, and therefore of a bot approval, is some evidence that the community supports adding these id numbers as a general thing. But if an objection is raised for a particular article, and consensus formed against it in that particular article, then it would be ideal if there were some way of excluding the bot, because we don't ever want a bot edit warring against consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

To my knowledge, the addition of bibcodes (and of the other identifiers David Eppstein mentions above as having been disputed) were never explicitly approved via BRFA for this bot. Do you have knowledge otherwise? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:49, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I have zero knowledge of the paperwork – just a belief that there ought to have been some. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

There is a way to exclude the bot from editing specific articles (and it has been used in the article in question), but some users seem to think the bot should magically know not to edit certain articles even without being specifically being told not to edit those articles.

I also feel like CITEVAR is being used to mean that people should never, ever edit citations once they've been added to an article. The whole thing has a tinge of WP:OWN to it, to be honest. Jay8g [V•T•E] 06:12, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I do kind of feel that if you personally initiated a bot run on an article and it was reverted for buggy behavior then you should not personally initiate another bot run on the same article less than 24 hours later with the bug report still unaddressed. I don't think magic need be involved to figure out that might be an annoying thing to do. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:24, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Do you really expect people to remember every minor cleanup edit they've ever made and notice if it's been reverted (when it's not from their account so they don't get a notification that it has been reverted)? Anyway, if you had just fixed the bugged part instead of reverting the whole edit (and therefore re-introducing CS1 errors/maintenance messages), the page wouldn't have popped back up in the Category:CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI queue. Jay8g [V•T•E] 06:35, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

You are not a bot, so you should not act like a bot. Take responsibility for the edits you make and pay attention when they are disputed rather than just running the bot automatically and then immediately forgetting what you have done like a bot would do.

See also: User talk:Citation bot/Archive 43#Bot limited to only single page request: The bot is currently forbidden from making whole-category runs. This is for a reason. You should not be working around this by manually triggering the bot on entire categories. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:34, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

If I may expand a little on this; the bot is not forbidden, as in prohibited by an administrator from whole-category runs. The limitation has been implemented by the maintainer(s) to support the development of the code and bug fixing - It was not a part of the unblock requirements, as can be seen in the unblock reasoning. The max pages has been set to 1 right now - technically a category with only one page in it might work.

Agreed that editors should pay attention to edits made by their requests. As far as I know, the idea is not that a user monitors all pages and sees if the bot has been reverted; it is that the user checks the edits right after they have been made - Sometimes the bot indeed has bad code and it was correctly blocked by an admin for that; however, sometimes the external data is bad itself, something the bot can't know, and then the user should block the bot from the specific citation (or the page) and report it on the talk page, so the external data can be added to a block list. All things considered there is a reason that the bot doesn't run 24\7 on its own across all pages like other maintenance bots do.

There should not be a need to run the bot multiple times on the same page within a short time. There also is no need to revert a whole edit if only a small part was bad. Both of these are valid points I think. Redalert2fan (talk) 08:31, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm commenting only because I was pinged. I cannot see anything in WP:CITEVAR that prohibits a bot adding identifiers to references. Addition of a DOI, Bibcode, ISBN or similar identifier to one or more references is not a change in "established citation style". CITEVAR is part of the WP:CITESTYLE section - that's clearly what it is referring to. Claiming that adding a Bibcode changes the overall style (and is therefore banned) is a perverse reading of the guideline that I cannot support. The choice of which identifiers are worth including is another matter; for Citation Bot we've had various discussions which supported the addition of ISBNs and Bibcodes but not some other identifiers (e.g. s2cid). I largely agree with WhatamIdoing above and implore editors not to waste time and effort arguing or edit warring about such a trivial issue. Modest Genius ^talk 13:34, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I tend to think that CITEVAR is about changing things like sfn to ref or list-defined references to other types i.e not merely appending some information to a citation template. One key consideration is that while picking a citation style is something one does consciously i.e for a reason, typically people omit parameters from citations because they don't know them, don't realize they could be added or expect the bot to add them and save them some manual work. While there are circumstances where a parameter was omitted for a reason, I think that's much less common than a parameter being omitted for one of the other three reasons. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:37, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

In this specific case we're talking about an example when information was deliberately not "appended", and the goal was to save frustration and hassle for human readers, not anything about avoiding "manual work".

But in general, this gets the answer backwards: Additional information should only be added for a reason, and deliberately not adding extraneous information which does not benefit readers is obviously better than adding it merely because a bot will do so unthinkingly. Wikipedia is not a database of citation metadata, and we should not add human-irrelevant clutter to our articles for clutter's own sake. –jacobolus (t) 14:01, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

How much benefit to readers is necessary? Because if it's less than 1%, we should omit citations entirely.

On average, only 1 in 300 page views results in a reader clicking through to one source. 99.7% of the time, readers don't care about the sources at all. If we take Circle packing theorem as an example, there are 46 little blue clicky numbers in the article. The article gets almost 9K page views per year. If we assume that the article behaves like a spherical frictionless chicken, then a reader will look at one ref every two weeks, and each footnote will be checked once every 21 months.

Maybe adding that "human-irrelevant clutter" would make it possible for certain readers to find the source (e.g., via their university's library system) and actually read it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

The bibcodes in question typically contain no information whatsoever that isn't already in our citation. That is, they list information such as the article title, author name, journal name, year, page number, and a DOI link to the publisher's website and/or and arXiv link to a preprint, but no additional information (and no copy of the full text). Can you elaborate about how you imagine how this would help "certain readers find the source", when those readers can already see precisely the same information and links from the Wikipedia article? –jacobolus (t) 21:46, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I do find bibcode useful when there are no other identifiers. The problem though is that we need more than "this is useless/useful in some special case" to argue about adding bibcodes more generally. If there is evidence that bibcodes routinely mislead readers, waste valuable server space or bring Wikipedia in disrepute, or more wiki-wide arguments more generally, then we could contest their addition as a general matter. If not, we need a way to flag a parameter as not worth adding - do citation templates and bots play nice with commented-out notes "please don't add this" being put in the parameter's place? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:38, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the way I get citation bot to stop adding one is to make the parameter say something like bibcode=<!-- useless bibcode: XYZ -->, which is then visible in the source but not shown to readers. –jacobolus (t) 10:16, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Modest Genius's comment. What is happening is analogous to in a Chicago-style citation where when a publisher is present someone adds a location (eg "New York" for "Oxford University Press"). The style of the citation hasn't changed and trying to fit the addition of IDs into WP:CITESTYLE clearly outside its scope. Ifly6 (talk) 20:01, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

If there's an established consistent style that doesn't include locations and you add locations, that's a style change too. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:56, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree with is said by Jo-Jo Eumerus, Modest Genius and WhatamIdoing, and do not understand why would the bibcode field be useless. For astronomy articles at least, it provides a copy of the abstract, allows you to see other works from the same author (a feature absent in many astronomy journals, or which just redirects to ADS/Google Scholar), provide direct links to the preprint and published version, links to the SIMBAD database for large catalogues where the full data is contained in an external table, and in many older papers, the only full-text copy available in the web. I am not sure about other areas, so i need examples of 'useless bibcodes' and the occurence rate of such bibcodes. I have seen some pages like HAT-P-67 using invisible text to prevent citation bot adding a non-existent page number, which may work to prevent such bibcodes. 21 Andromedae (talk) 19:02, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Here are examples of useless bibcodes. I compiled a table (User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/bibcodes) with all of the bibcodes and DOIs from an article I have been working on, History of atomic theory. Eleven of the 16 bibcodes where only the citation. 5 had the abstract, but in every case the DOI had the same or more information. Also many more DOIs were in the article with no corresponding bibcode. Bibcodes are specific to astronomy and we should not be automatically adding them all over wikipedia.

Now my challenge to you: can you find any examples outside of the field of astronomy where a bibcode gives more information than the DOI? Johnjbarton (talk) 19:57, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I largely only edit astronomy-related articles, so i can't provide such examples. 21 Andromedae (talk) 00:47, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton, I don't think we should expect an "identifier used by several astronomical data systems" (to quote our article on Bibcode) to be used much "outside the field of astronomy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, hence my proposal in the next topic. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:26, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with including bibcodes for astronomy/astrophysics papers; similarly, I don't have a problem with PMIDs for medical research papers. But when bibcodes or PMIDs get attached to e.g. history, math, or social science papers, they typically don't contain any additional useful information. But the bot adds them anyway, indiscriminately, just on the basis that the identifier exists rather than for any concrete benefit to readers. –jacobolus (t) 03:28, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The difference between a doi and a bibcode is the bibcode is link to a database of papers and citations. The database is being expanded into something called SciX which will index a broader range of subjects: "SciX covers and unifies the fields of Earth science, planetary science, astrophysics, heliophysics, and the NASA-funded biological and physical sciences.", so don't think of it as limited to astronomy. Interestingly for very new papers the bibcode works while the doi is too new to work, but a short time cures that. StarryGrandma (talk) 03:54, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Discussion on references vs. reflist

There is a discussion at Help talk:Footnotes § Tag or template preference which may be of interest. -- Beland (talk) 05:28, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

Per this, would there be any objections to changing the use of {{reflist}} to <references /> on this page? The native mediawiki markup makes sense as the default here, though this example doesn't use LDR which would make the case stronger. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:39, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to make the change, does it cause a problem as it does with LDRs? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:45, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

On a page that is hitting the PEIS limit, reflist makes the situation worse, unlike the tag, because it's a template. I don't know if there are other reasons beyond those two. My suggestion here was prompted partly by discussions at Template talk:Reflist, where for example Anomie commented that changing between the two should ideally be a cosmetic edit. If that's the case (and given there are a couple of reasons to prefer the tag) it seems to me this page should give the tag as the example. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:20, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

This template adds little to the PEIS limit, it just happens to be at the end of articles and so is after the PEIS limit being hit. The problem in every case is the content of the article, not this template. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:58, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

I changed the example on this page, as the other discussion seemed to generally prefer the tag. -- Beland (talk) 20:29, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

@Beland WP:REFLIST shows <reflist /> twice, that's probably not what you intended with your change? Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 09:28, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Huh, I thought I saw that stay the same when I previewed. I must have not refreshed before publishing. Fixed now; thanks for catching that! -- Beland (talk) 17:41, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Referencing policy for transcribed data?

Hi, Is there a way to cite multiple references within a single cite web / cite book etc section of code? I have a few instances where Reference A (an out-of-print book) is considered a reliable source, and the same data has been transcribed to Reference B (an enthusiast site for the same topic, so wouldn't meet WP:RS on its own merits). Ordinarily for Wikipedia purposes it would be correct to only include Reference A, but I also want to link to Reference B as a more convenient way to get the same information. So, what sort of code should I use to say "this should be source A, but the same info is also available at less reputable source B which references A"? Anothersignalman (talk) 09:39, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

@Anothersignalman, I think what you are talking about is a convenience link; see also the essay Wikipedia:Convenience link. If you search for "convenience" in {{Cite book}} then it seems you can include such a link in the url or title-link field. However, you have to be sure that your Reference B is not infringing the original rights-holders' copyright of Reference A. If it does, you mustn't link to it. I hope that's somewhat helpful. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 09:52, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Yes, that seems like the right sort of thing. Looks like Wiki doesn't distinguish between a proper URL and a convenience URL; I was hoping for something like a Convenience-URL = field in the same way that URL and Archive-URL are separated. Possibly some code challenges since (for example) page 100 of the book might link to site/page1.html, page 102 might link to site/page337.html etc, and just linking to the overall site might not be sufficiently convenient. The book side is solved with rp|37. but that doesn't really work for websites as far as I know? Re copyright, in one instance I had permission from the author of the book (before they died) to transcribe the content, in another it's between two expert self-published sources so I presume they'd worked out something between them. Is that a fair assumption? Anothersignalman (talk) 10:23, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

If you were to use a {{Shortened footnote}}, it seems that for each instance of an inline citation, you can add a URL for a loc= or p= parameter. See Template:Sfn § Adding a URL for the page or location On the copyright front, I wouldn't make any assumptions, and if there's any doubt, I would ask someone more qualified than me! Maybe ask one of these admins for specific advice on the sources / copies in question. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 10:47, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

I recommend User:SMcCandlish/How to use the sfnp family of templates as it does a great job of explaining how to handle awkward csses.

(btw, {{sfnp}}, which puts the date in parentheses like 'normal' CS1/2, is "prettier" than {{sfn}} for that reason. Otherwise they are identical.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:29, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Ooh that is useful - thanks for linking the essay! Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

You can always include information after the cite but before the closing reference tag.
<ref>{{cite book |last=Last |first=First |title=title |date=year}} [https://website.com/translation A translation is also available]</ref>. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:02, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Oh, I like that idea! Thanks :) Anothersignalman (talk) 01:20, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

Alternatively, you might be able to use via= ? But you would have to be sure that the transcription is faithful, meaning that you have to have read the original text yourself. Is the original book on archive.org? (or, second best, Google Books? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:22, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Depends what you mean by faithful. In the first case, it's not letter-for-letter because I expanded acronyms and shorthand to full words as outlined at the start of the book (e.g. "ILO" to "in lieu of", and plenty of technical terminology), and there was an errata the author kept up-to-date until his death that I handwrote into my copy. (I also had to tape the spine back together after I'd finished copying it.) I don't know who is handling the estate, I assume it'll be a few years before it's resolved. That book is not available online except as the transcription I made, as far as I know. For the second example, between the two Expert:SPS's, I have no idea, but even if it is available online I think I'd like a copy for myself. Anothersignalman (talk) 01:27, 9 January 2026 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:ADR" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Wikipedia:ADR has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2026 January 26 § Wikipedia:ADR until a consensus is reached. thetechie@enwiki:~$ she/they | talk 02:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

Clarification on removing dead links

See the initial discussion at the Help Desk

I'm seeking clarification on whether to remove dead links that have been tagged for longer than 2 years and tag with {{cn}} if applicable per WP:DEADREF or to keep them per WP:KDL.

As of posting, three editors in the help desk have argued to keep the dead links. This discussion was the only recent discussion to support DEADREF that I found.

What is the best option for this? Thanks. Ecourter (talk) 19:15, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Honestly, what's the hurry or point? Tag as dead and leave it for reference or archival pursuit. Add an archive.org or archive.today archival if one exists. Don't just yank a latent reference point someone can use later for arbitrary tidyness. If no attempt is made to archive/correct, don't gnome for the sake of gnoming! — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 19:22, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Then what is the point of having step 6 on DEADREF? If the consensus is to leave dead links alone, shouldn't that be removed or at the very least rewritten? Ecourter (talk) 19:34, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

Sure, if literally all options are exhausted. I'm just saying there's never any imperative or time sensitive or semi-automated "let's knock out 1K" of these for urgency. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 19:38, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I should have phrased myself a little better. I would not immediately remove the dead link, but I would do the checks and see if I can find an archive or alternative, and then remove the dead link and CN tag it per step 6. I have yet to seek out these dead links, I've only stumbled across them. Trying to figure out how to do all that semi-automatically would be out of my depth. Ecourter (talk) 19:49, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

I may be a bit biased as I've found other supplemental sources by scratching at what I assumed were dead links; suddenly putting another keywork into google with "some phrase text" and things like filetype:pdf ends up finding other content, and then I find a backway/alternative off of references or footnotes or some other errata that invoked (but did not share more data on) the original dead link. I was kicking myself like that ready to give up on a particular document more than once that I knew existed but couldn't find. Then I start searching sideways and find a relevant piece of data from the missing source, but mentioned elsehwere in a roundabout way.

If you find one, they're probably rare these days as so many people are obsessive archivers. Trust me; the internet's old enough now with us as a nexus of data cross-referencing (especially as so many use us to bootstrap/start their research) that there's probably a goofy way to get at dead content. Once I found one in Archive.org as a book I could borrow, that didn't even exist where I could buy it online anywhere (and I tried). — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 19:54, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

In my eyes, there is only three reasons to remove a dead link from an article:

1. The information being cited is removed

2. The source has been replaced by a better one

3. We can tell that the information would never have been at that location.

Removing links and not replacing them is just a loss of information. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:25, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

It depends on the information. If you think the information is accurate and that another source is likely to exist (even if you haven’t found it) - leave it. If you think it inaccurate or unlikely that another source exists - remove it. Be stricter in BLPs than in other articles. Blueboar (talk) 20:48, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

The best thing to do when possible is to find a replacement for the dead link, either an archived copy or an alternative link for the same document. For print references with unrecoverable dead links, the link should be removed from the reference but the reference should not be removed; there is no problem with references to offline print publications. It is only when the reference existed only as a web page and that web page cannot be recovered that it needs to be replaced by some other reference. Even in those cases, I would prefer leaving the deadlink in place than replacing it by {{cn}}, until a replacement can be found, because often the deadlink can provide useful information that might help some other editor find an appropriate replacement. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:05, 6 January 2026 (UTC)

@Ecourter, have you been adding the |fix-attempted=yes parameter to the {{dead link}} template? This lets editors know that you've done all the hard work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

Improve wording related to capitalization of source titles?

There was an RfC in Spring 2025 that concluded that titles of all sources within a given article should all use the same capitalization rule (e.g. title case, or sentence case); and that the capitalization that individual sources use for themselves should be ignored. That decision is documented in this guideline as:

• WP:CITESTYLE: "Nearly any consistent style can be used [for citations]. Preserving the capitalization style that each individual source uses for itself is not considered a consistent style.".

But this guideline also has:

• WP:CITEVAR: "... you may choose whichever style you think best for the article, except inline parenthetical referencing. Follow the citation style's preferences for whether to use title case, sentence case, etc.,..." (emphasis added)

The wording is not very clear for a couple of reasons:

1. Searches for "title case" will lead editors to WP:CITEVAR which says ... choose whichever style you think best.... That search will not lead editors to to more relevant "Preserving the capitalization style ..."
2. The wording "Preserving the capitalization style that each individual source uses for itself is not considered a consistent style." is a overly poetic, and does not plainly state the guideline to readers. Better would be something like All source titles within an article should conform to the same capitalization rule, such as title case or sentence case (however, using the capitalization that individual sources use for themselves is not acceptable).

I'm not bringing this issue up randomly: I've had to cite this guideline three times in the past few months in FA reviews, and it is very difficult to locate the RfC's guidance anywhere in the MOS or guidelines. It takes me a long time to find it. The wording of the guideline should include search-friendly phrases that help editors find the guidance. Thoughts? Noleander (talk) 22:48, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

I do not believe that the conclusion you state ("that titles of all sources within a given article should all use the same capitalization rule (e.g. title case, or sentence case") was the declared consensus of that RFC. It merely declared that following the publications' own capitalizations for individual references is not a consistent citation style. In particular, the closing statement included "This consensus is not a consensus that a uniform capitalization, such as sentence case or title case, should be imposed."

I tend to personally follow a citation style in which books and periodicals use title case and that individual articles, chapters, or other contributions within a book or periodical use sentence case. I believe that rule to be consistent and I do not believe that the RFC outcome says anything to the contrary. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification of the outcome of the RFC. The fact remains that the guidance Contained in this page is extremely confusing... I cannot tell from the this Wikipedia page what the actual guidance is. If what you say is correct, then the page shoukd be updated to clearly state that. If this is a fairly minor aspect of the guidance, perhaps it can be stuck into the existing footnote on this issue. Otherwise future editors will have no idea what the guidance is. Noleander (talk) 00:27, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I believe the wording "All source titles within an article should conform to the same capitalization rule" is too strong to be realistic. Yes, in an ideal article that will be the case, but most articles won't comply with that ideal since references are added by editors on a case by case basis. When improving articles, I often try to clean this up a bit – say towards a policy of "title case for books, sentence case for shorter articles", which corresponds to what David Eppstein said and often matches de facto practices quite well. Perfect correspondence to title or sentence case for all references is often not realistic without lots of editorial time spent on it. I think the result of the RfC was simply: Editors may clean this up, by converting everything to either title or sentence case or some other consistent rule; other editors may not revert this by saying "but the source itself uses a different case". That was all the RfC was about and that was its outcome. But editors don't have to clean articles up, and in that case the article will simply remain in an imperfect state regarding the casing style. Which I guess is the case with 99% of our articles with more than ten references, if one only considers "title case everywhere" or "sentence case everywhere" as consistent. Perfection is hard to reach in an imperfect world. Gawaon (talk) 03:39, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the further clarification of what the RfC was saying. But I think you're just proving my point: the guideline is not clearly explained in this project page. You wrote "Editors may clean this up, by converting everything to either title or sentence case or some other consistent rule; other editors may not revert this by saying 'but the source itself uses a different case'. ".... Which is fine. But that's not what this project page says. And it's not what editor Eppstein said above. Apparently, people that participated in the RFC cannot even agree on what the outcome of the RFC was. I repeat my assertion that the guideline on how to capitalize source titles is unclear and this page should be improved. I have no opinion on what the guideline should be, But whatever it is, it should be clearly stated in this project page. Noleander (talk) 05:40, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

You appear to think that the outcome of an RFC must always be a rule telling you exactly what to do in all circumstances. That is not the case, and not the case for this RFC. We have no rule other than to use consistent casing within a single article, and no definition of what consistency means beyond to use common sense and to not try to follow publisher casing. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:54, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

@Noleander, does this still need work? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing - Yes. But I'm kinda burned-out on MOS. Every time I come to the MOS Talk page to point out ambiguities or opportunities for clarification, I get fire-bombed by very experienced editors (who should know better) telling me I'm a moron. It is a bit discouraging. So, yes the guidance for source title capitalization guidance is still unclear & contradictory. Whatever happened to the notion of rolling-up our sleeves and working together? If someone wants to improve the clarity, I'm happy to assist. Noleander (talk) 01:27, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

@Noleander, does this edit address all of your concerns? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Yes, that looks much better. Thanks for doing that. Noleander (talk) 20:06, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

You're welcome. We'll see if anyone volunteers to have another discussion about this or if the edit sticks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:21, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

WP:CITEVAR and column widths

I've seen quite a few edits to remove specified column widths from {{refbegin}} and {{reflist}} (example 1, 2, 3). Does CITEVAR also extend to formatting outside the {{citation}} family of templates? If so, should it be specified?  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 19:38, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

The MOS takes no position on column widths. Use whatever you like, or what makes sense for the article in question. Gawaon (talk) 20:20, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

I'd also say, if that's the question, that merely changing column widths it not an "attempt to change an article's established citation style" and doesn't require prior discussion. It can of course be disputed and reverted by other editors, like any change. Gawaon (talk) 20:22, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

The 3 mentioned cases had more narrow columns because they used short citations. I suspect a previous editor had given this some thought and chose this layout deliberately. I think it's not collegial to disregard such choices and I would revert such edits in articles on my watch list as "no improvement", possibly as "disruptive". -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:32, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I too tend to use 20em or 25em when there are lots of short citations. I've never had disputes or discussions about this, but when in doubt I'd revert a removal of the parameter too if it seems unwarranted. If needed, it can then be discussed on the talk page, though it is a fairly minor matter. Gawaon (talk) 08:54, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

• I have generally reverted, citing CITEVAR, as yes in these cases it was deliberate; SFN can handle narrower columns than {{citation}} family templates, and so this minimizes whitespace on desktop without affecting mobile views. The default 30em behaviour seems to only kick in after eight or ten references, which can leave large swathes of white space on desktop for articles with fewer citations than that.

I see that specified numbers of columns were deprecated, due specifically to issues with skins and resolutions. I'm unaware of any concerns about specified column widths deleteriously affecting different skins/resolutions, but if they are severe enough that one would change the established presentation of references in an article, I would think it would be worth discussion at the template page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 13:45, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

How do I cite a pdf file?

I have a link to a URL which in turn has a link to the pdf file containing the information I am citing.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:08, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

You can use Template:cite website. That's what I use. But I'm sure there are several other ways to do it. Noleander (talk) 18:35, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

if the PDF file is a book, you can use cite book template like this:

{{cite book

| last=Chavel

| first=Brandon

| chapter =Bridge Deck Design

| title=Steel Bridge Design Handbook

| publisher= American Institute of Steel Construction

| isbn=

| chapter-url=https://www.aisc.org/globalassets/nsba/design-resources/steel-bridge-design-handbook/b917_sbdh_chapter17.pdf

| access-date=4 November 2025

| year=2022

}}

But if it's not a book the cite website is probably better. Noleander (talk) 18:40, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

The PDF file is a technical report related to this application for a facility change by a radio station. If you scroll all the way down, there is a link "WLNK-FM TECHNICAL REPORT-012326.pdf" at the very end. Clicking on the link causes the PDF to be downloaded. The PDF is my source.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:23, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Lots of options, check out some of the pages on my user page in the central box. I've got a ton on Field propulsion. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 19:39, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

The PDF doesn't have a URL. That's the problem.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:59, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Of course the PDF does have a URL: https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/api/download/attachment/25076ff39bdbcfd6019bfb752fec0c12 -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:02, 22 February 2026 (UTC)

Didn't know how to find it, but I suspected that might be true.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:44, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

The PDF aspect is not relevant. You could cite it as a {{cite report}}, eg

• Anderson Associates, Broadcast Engineering Consultants. "WLNK-FM # 52553 License Change to Weddington, NC" (Report). Attachement "WLNK-FM TECHNICAL REPORT-012326.pdf": Federal Communications Commission.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: location (link)

Johnjbarton (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Done. Thanks.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:33, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

|location= is for the location of the publisher, |at= would be more appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:53, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

All the CS1 templates, CS2 templates, and short citations templates will support |at= as well, so it can be used with whichever citation template makes the most sense. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 21:02, 21 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't even bother to read what I was copying.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:44, 24 February 2026 (UTC)

How do you show two different times in a video?

I thought about trying rp, but that just displays the time in the article text and doesn't show it under references. Copying and pasting the same ref wouldn't be that hard, but is there a way?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:21, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Time in {{cite av media}} accepts multiple instances in the same way as |pages=:
{{cite av media |title=Title |time=1:34 & 5:24}}
Title. Event occurs at 1:34 & 5:24. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:04, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

You can also use |minutes= which will produce:
Title. 1:34 & 5:24 minutes in. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:10, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

There are two different events, each requiring cites.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:15, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

If you need more explanation you can drop |time= and simply explain after the the cite but before the end ref tag.
<ref>{{cite av media |title=Title}} Explanation including times</ref>
The last option I can think of is using {{sfn}}. Add |ref={{sfnref}} to the cite and then use {{sfn|loc=Explanation}}, but that seems overly complicated as a solution. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:53, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

The simplest thing was to just copy the entire ref and have different times. I suppose this information may be helpful for someone else.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:00, 26 February 2026 (UTC)

Moving forward with Reference Check

Reference Check

Hi all! In November/December, we ran an A/B test of Reference Check, a feature that prompts new editors adding new content to include a citation. You can check out the discussion above establishing consensus to run the test for some additional details/background, and you can try out the check yourself by following the instructions there.

Test results

We're now back, and we have some results to share! You can read the full report if you'd like all the details, but here's the summary:

• When editors were shown Reference Check their edits adding new content were far more likely to include a reference: ~2.2× more likely on desktop (30.7% → 68.2%), and (even more dramatically) ~17.5× more likely on mobile web (2.8% → 48.9%).
• Edits shown Reference Check were 14.5% less likely to be reverted within 48 hours.
• After clicking the initial "Publish changes…" button (which triggers the check if enabled or leads directly to the "Save your changes" screen if not), editors shown Reference Check were 4.8% less likely to complete publication of the edit.

Overall, we interpret these data to indicate that Reference Check is working: It's prompting newcomers to add citations, which appears to be improving the quality of their edits. And although it introduces friction that slightly decreases edit completion rates, the effect is not severe/is outweighed by the benefits. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions or thoughts about these results!

Next step: Enable Reference Check

Given the positive test results, combined with the support we've heard from you all, we believe Reference Check is ready to be enabled for all newcomers (by default editors with up to 100 edits, although you can change this or other settings via MediaWiki:Editcheck-config.json). We would like to enable it next Tuesday, February 10. What do you think of this plan? Is there anything you think warrants being addressed before then? And is there anything you'd like us to keep in mind as we move forward with work in this area?

Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 23:38, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Did your tests include any human checking of whether the information given a source was actually present in the listed source? This seems particularly relevant given the prevalence of AI editing and the recently posted WikiEdu experience of finding that for much AI-generated content "nearly every cited sentence in the article failed verification": , via. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

Indeed, that would seem to be quite a fundamental thing to check. Adding a reference is easy, particularly if you ask ChatGPT to spit one out for you... Adding a reference that actually verifies the fact it claims to be verifying, is not quite as simple and if in a choice between adding junk references and having no references at all, we clearly need to stick with the latter.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:58, 2 February 2026 (UTC)

These concerns are largely independent of this new feature. Until such a time a we have AI tools to verify content, it is up the us to check references given in edits, with or without Reference Check. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:24, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Ok, but it would be helpful to know to what extent the increase in referencing found in Reference Check was from valid references, and to what extent it was AI-found invalid references. More valid references is certainly a good thing, but more invalid references is worse than no references at all because it takes more effort to find and more effort to fix. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:34, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree, but this seems like issue of detecting AI edits. In this regard Reference Check is likely to scare off a good number of AI edits simply by making the bar higher for these lazy 'editors'. The 5% drop-off counts to the plus side in any case.

In my experience if I challenge a named editor to provide a reference they almost always come up with something reasonable. I distrust unnamed editors, sources or not. Overall this feature seems like its worth enabling generally. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:54, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Funny that you should mention that, @Johnjbarton, as we are actually beginning to explore whether AI models might be able to help us surface to editors times when a reference appears not to support the claim it is being used to cite. Feel free to subscribe to or comment on that Phabricator task if you'd like to be involved! This work is still at a very early stage — any features that eventually come out of it will be informed by our AI strategy that centers human judgment, and we'll seek your collaboration on their development long before they reach the deployment stage. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 06:51, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Johnjbarton, Until such a time a we have AI tools to verify content maybe you'd be interested in this tool for checking online references. Still in beta so feedback very much appreciated. Alaexis_¿question? 15:34, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

In re Did your tests include any human checking: Are you willing to do that work? I think it'd be easy to give you a list of a thousand diffs of newer editors adding refs, blinded for whether this feature was triggered, if you'd like to review them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:48, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Excellent question, @David Eppstein! We certainly do not want to inadvertently encourage editors to add junk references. One line of defense we have against that is making the notice easy to dismiss. Editors who select "No" are asked to select a reason, but beyond that we don't force their hand. Because of that, the path of least resistance for someone who really doesn't want to add a reference is just to dismiss the check, not to ask ChatGPT to make one up.

Zooming out a bit, for edits adding new content to be verifiable, references need to be (a) present, (b) reliable, and (c) corroborative of the article content.

Reference Check is meant to address (a), but ultimately we hope to encourage all three requirements. We are in the early stages of researching the feasibility of offering mechanisms to identify potentially unreliable references and cases where a reference appears not to support a published claim.

For now, we've introduced edit tags to enable review of the references this feature is prompting the newcomers who were put into the test group to add. Feel free to check out this feed to see them for yourself. Since these are all edits by newcomers, adjust your expectations for overall edit quality accordingly. But if you notice a significant number of junk references, that is certainly something we'd want to know.

Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 06:50, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughtful response! I am wary of the idea of automatically adding citation needed tags in your proposed mechanism for finding bad references, but some automated way of identifying bad sources seems indeed like a very useful thing to have.

Re new users sometimes having bad taste in sources, unrelated to LLM use: Yes. Coincidentally the first 50 edits on the feed you linked (at the time I looked) contained one that I had reverted earlier today, not because it did not verify the claim but because it was published in a predatory journal. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:01, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Pinging the editors from the prior discussion: Thryduulf, Toadspike, and Femke. Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 06:56, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Reading the feed, is the assumption that any edit with a reference there initially did not have one, or does the filter trigger if there is an unsourced paragraph even if there is a source added elsewhere? CMD (talk) 07:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@Chipmunkdavis, the tag is applied to all edits where the check was activated, causing the "Add a citation" box to appear (this happens when the editor adds a paragraph at least 50 characters long without a citation and clicks the initial "Publish changes…" button that normally leads to the "Save your changes" screen). The editor adding a different paragraph elsewhere with a citation for that paragraph would not affect it, because the feature works on a paragraph level. Given this, it's technically possible that edits in the feed might have references in them that were added via normal editing and a check on a different addition elsewhere in the same edit that was dismissed. But in practice it's fairly safe to assume that any references in the feed were added because of the check's prompting. Hope that helps clarify! Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 06:12, 9 February 2026 (UTC)

Notified: WP:Village pump (proposals), WT:Teahouse, WT:WikiProject Usability, Help talk:Referencing for beginners, WT:Reliable sources, WT:Verifiability. Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 07:04, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Very positive! Did you test what the retention of new editors is? I imagine that reverts are quite bad for editor retention, so this should be a plus, but curious to see if we have hard data on this. With readership going down a bit, retention is new editors is even more important. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 11:23, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Past research showed that reverting an edit is one of the most reliable ways to stop future contributions. Building on an edit (e.g., dropping in a missing source, or fixing a formatting problem) is conversely one of the best ways to retain promising newcomers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing I believe the first part, but I'm not sure about the second part. I think most new editors won't notice any building on their edits, esp. as unlike reverts they aren't pinged. Could you please share the past research this is based on? Toadspike [Talk] 13:40, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

Newbies aren't pinged for reverts. (Why would we do that? We don't have a shortage of edit wars, after all.) What newbies often do is check back manually the next day, to see if their contribution 'stuck'. If it has, they might try again.

The particular study that I was thinking of is old enough that it's probably on the usability: wiki instead of on Meta-Wiki. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

@Femke, the effect of Reference Check on retention is something we are curious about, but we ultimately didn't have the capacity to analyze it specifically for this test. That said, due to the research WhatamIdoing mentioned, we can hypothesize that the reduced revert rate we've observed is likely to correspond to an improved retention rate. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 18:17, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

I wouldn't expect any dramatic change in the retention rate. It's a very difficult metric to increase, especially since the main factors are either intrinsic (e.g., POV pushing) or social (e.g., did a human seem to appreciate my contribution?) rather than something software can address. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

I support enabling it based on the results of the pilot. u:David Eppstein's raises a good point, so it would be good to do a spot check of added references. But this is not a blocker. Alaexis_¿question? 15:39, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

Are you willing to do that spot check? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:41, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

I've just done it actually and found a few legit sources, a few edits with no sources and one apparently invented ethnic group in Afghanistan.

On the second thought, a spot check isn't really sufficient. We don't know what the editor who added the hoax would have done had they not seen the warning. Maybe they wouldn't add references making the removal of the hoax easier. Personally I doubt it, but to be sure we'd need to compare the rate of fake sources added as part of this pilot to the baseline rate which is a more substantial undertaking.

@Sdkb-WMF, do you plan by any chance to run such analysis? Alaexis_¿question? 22:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)

One approach that doesn't require a human to read all the diffs would be to write a script that checks cited URLs to see if they're 404s or not. You could run that check on the whole dataset to see what percentage of prompted and unprompted users cited invalid URLs. Even if that doesn't catch all bogus sources, the ratio between the two percentages should still tell you how much of an effect the prompt is having. Justin Kunimune (talk) 00:18, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

For this test, the most pertinent signal we have is the revert rate, because presumably some portion of edits were reviewed and we'd expect those where the patroller noticed a hoax reference to be reverted. Looking forward, as I mentioned above, we're working on creating a signal that could help flag hoax references, which will make it feasible to do that sort of analysis and to measure the efficacy of future features to help combat them. Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 18:44, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

Maybe I'm overlooking it, but do you have data on how mobile editors formatted their citations? Specific questions based on the mobile visual editor:

• Have any users reported or is there a way to see if they struggle to identify how to add the citations? (clicking on the quote marks)
• Do they auto-generate citations? Hand write citations? Or auto-generate and then revise?
• What percentage use templates vs. wikitext citations?
• What percentage of those using templates use any of the non-required and non-suggested parameters? Especially for {{cite book}}?

I ask because I have personally found the mobile version of VE's citation adding rather confusing. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:33, 6 February 2026 (UTC)^{Moved from above section. Sdkb‑WMF talk 17:54, 10 February 2026 (UTC)}

Good questions, @Rjjiii! I agree that there's a lot of room to improve the workflow for adding citations on VisualEditor (personally I tend to switch over to source editing to add them). Reference Check has a more basic goal of just getting more newcomers to add citations, even if imperfectly formatted, so we unfortunately didn't have the capacity to investigate formatting in detail.

Clicking on "Yes" on the card prompting the editor to add a citation directly opens the normal VE workflow for adding a citation. The fact that we saw a significant increase in the number of citations added and only a modest decrease in edit completion rate does give us confidence that most newcomers are able to navigate this workflow and are not struggling overall to figure out how to add a citation with Reference Check.

Longer-term, I hope we'll someday be able to make improvements to the VE citation workflow. Until then, I hope that it's at least better for both readers and editors to have sometimes-poorly-formatted citations than to have nothing. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 17:54, 10 February 2026 (UTC)

@Sdkb-WMF, "[...] that most newcomers are able to navigate this workflow and are not struggling overall to figure out how to add a citation with Reference Check." Yeah, most likely. I get you all are trying to ship a specific product, and of course good luck with rolling it out. I was thinking about it from a kind of sideways viewpoint: what does it mean that the increase was so much greater on mobile? I wonder how many mobile editors might not have even been aware of the workflow to add the citation prior to the prompting from Reference Check. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 22:43, 15 February 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, certainly. 2.8% of new mobile editors adding references before the prompting is a very low baseline, and it would be great to increase it. We're exploring improvements to the mobile editing VE interface in phab:T400903. Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 20:47, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

• Update: Reference Check enabled. Hi all! We have now completed deployment of Reference Check, as per the timeline I mentioned above. The comments and questions in this discussion have been encouraging and useful for us, so thank you all! Our work on Edit Checks is ongoing, so feel free to continue the discussion here and/or check out our other projects, such as the new Suggestion Mode beta feature. Cheers, Sdkb‑WMF ^talk 22:26, 11 February 2026 (UTC)

Discussion re citing page numbers within journal/magazine articles

There is a discussion at WT:GAN#References in a GAN article that may be of interest to editors here, regarding Good Article reviewer demands that citations to journal and magazine articles supply page numbers to the specific points cited within those articles (rather than, as our citation templates provide, the range of pages for an entire print article). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:48, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

The templates, as I understand and use them, allow using the page(s) parameter for either purpose (but admittedly not both together). Gawaon (talk) 08:37, 19 February 2026 (UTC)

The general rule, as articulated at Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations, is that you should cite the relevant bits, even if that's not a short number of pages (e.g., you can cite a whole chapter). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:15, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

Needs update:CS1 and Citoid have become king and queen

Most new citations are done by Citoid, producing CS1. The style guide ought to note and encourage this trend. Jim.henderson (talk) 19:07, 2 March 2026 (UTC)

We could say that it's popular but not required. Would that work for you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Mixed reference styles

What if it's a mixed reference style like what has occurred for this revision of "Russell M. Nelson" article, in contrast to a similar article like this revision of the "Dallin H. Oaks" article (both are the same types of subjects, that being LDS Church Presidents, which have a similar style, but weirdly have different referencing styles)? The former-mentioned article seems to be formatted much in the way of the Short and Full Citations style that the WP:CITESHORT suggests, but I am still not sure what the exact approach is to deal with References section when Notes, footnote-style references, and bulletpoint references are mixed together. As is for the former-mentioned (Russell M. Nelson), the Notes mixed into footnote-style references kinda looks odd, so what's the approach that most pages have agreed on when Notes, footnote-style references, and bulletpoint references are mixed?

What would the best approach be for mixing Notes, footnote-style references, and bulletpoint references? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 10:10, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

What's your question, exactly? Many articles have such a mix, presumably often as a result of how they evaluated rather than conscious choice. I think it's reasonable to put a bib entry into the itemized list of references if it's cited multiple times or if it's a book (and then use short refs to refer to it), while papers mentioned just once (or maybe twice) just go into a footnote. Gawaon (talk) 11:41, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

The question is how to approach articles with a mix of Notes, footnote-style references, and bulletpoint references, which appears in articles such as Russell M. Nelson. The Citing Sources page doesn't seem to clarify three of them together, just the latter two. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 11:57, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

The article Russell M. Nelson is using a very standard approach. It has two important sections at the bottom:

• A list of citations (some call them footnotes); section titled "Notes" in this article, but other articles use different section titles such as "Citations" etc. Its wiki markup content is simply {{reflist}}
• A list of sources, in section named "References" (other section titles are also available). Some (but not all) of the citations/footnotes refer to the sources.

The article does not nave a section for "explanatory footnotes" (which would contain wiki markup {{notelist}}) Does your question revolve around the titles of the sections? WP does not have a "forced" set of section titles, there are 2 or 3 common titles for the cites section & the references section.

Or is your question about the fact that most of the citations are "self contained" and do not refer to sources listed in the References section? That mixed approach is very common: many articles have a bullet list of major sources. All cites to minor sources (not listed in References) are "self contained" and do not refer to a major source. Some editors prefer to have 100% of the citations refer to sources ... that gives the article an elegant, clean look; but some editors consider it wasteful since the data for sources is spread over two places, and it requires reader to make 2 clicks to find the source. Noleander (talk) 14:25, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Mainly the first part. What are some commonly implemented ways to incorporate both References and Explanatory Notes while also using the dual References (which is, as discussed, a totally acceptable way to do References with both inline citations and bulletpointed citations)? That being said, the second part you mentioned is also worth discussing and clarifying for the Citing Sources page, in which it should explain a little more about why having that dual References is able to work well together and is a truly acceptable way to do referencing when compared to just inline citations. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 15:30, 6 March 2026 (UTC) Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 15:31, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Actually, all refs are "inline", i.e. footnotes, we don't really allow another style. Some of these footnotes point to a separate section (called "References" in the Nelson article; other articles often name it "Bibliography" or similar), while in other cases the footnote is self-contained or refers back (short-ref style) to an earlier footnote for the full reference details. I admit it's a bit ad-hoc and you aren't likely to see it quite like that in a scientific publication, but for us it seems to work well enough. Gawaon (talk) 15:43, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

Interesting. And for the note With the death of Boyd K. Packer on July 3, 2015, Nelson [...] July 15, 2015. compared to other citations in the Notes section, is it still common for pages to be laid out just like as is in the Nelson page, as in a merged Notes section with both note points and inline references to sources? It is fine to have that style, isn't it? And if so, what specifically makes this style acceptable among articles? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 18:06, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

At a quick glimpse, the footnotes in that article already seem to be formatted in a fairly consistent way? If you spot inconsistencies and want to clean them up, I don't think anyone will object to that. Gawaon (talk) 18:15, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

All right, sounds good. Also, is it still worth mentioning in Citing Sources page about the topics we discussed in our discussion? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 18:28, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

I don't know. I think everything important is already covered in the page, but maybe I missed something. Gawaon (talk) 18:50, 6 March 2026 (UTC)

There's nothing "wrong" with this style. This approach is allowed and fairly common:

All the little blue clicky numbers point here

1. ^ Smith 2000, p. 25.
2. ^ Reporter, Rae (2010). "Newspaper Story of the Decade". Big News.
3. ^ Smith 2000, p. 142.

Books and stuff follow

• Smith, Sal (2000). A Life Worth Living. Big University Press. ISBN 978-12345567897.

This other approach is also allowed and also fairly common:

Only little blue clicky numbers to short citations point here

1. ^ Smith 2000, p. 25.
2. ^ Smith 2000, p. 142.

A separate section is for little blue clicky numbers to long citations

1. ^ Reporter, Rae (2010). "Newspaper Story of the Decade". Big News.

A third section has books and stuff for the short citations

• Smith, Sal (2000). A Life Worth Living. Big University Press. ISBN 978-12345567897.

And of course you can always make every source appear in both:

All little blue clicky numbers point to short citations here

1. ^ Smith 2000, p. 25.
2. ^ Reporter 2010.
3. ^ Smith 2000, p. 142.

The second section has all long citations

• Reporter, Rae (2010). "Newspaper Story of the Decade". Big News.
• Smith, Sal (2000). A Life Worth Living. Big University Press. ISBN 978-12345567897.

These are all "legal". Editors mainly choose which one to use based on personal/aesthetic preferences and practicality (e.g., how many refs in each section?). I think the one at the top is used in Donald Trump. The one at the top can also be a mistake, if the short cites are added with ordinary ref tags and the long citation was added by someone who didn't know how to get the ref formatting right. For example, all the long cites in Breast cancer awareness#References are wrong, and I reformat new additions to the chosen style (which is the last of the three examples I give) every couple of years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:31, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

What article has ever used your second example? I have never seen that. PARAKANYAA (talk) 00:59, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Have a look at articles like The Dryad (Sibelius)#Notes, references, and sources or Piano Sonata in F major (Sibelius)#Notes, references, and sources. The first of the three sections combines explanatory footnotes with full citations to Discogs. The second is sfn short citations. The third is full citations.

If you'd like to see a truly large number of refs sections, look at William T. Stearn#Notes. For splitting sources by type (e.g., print vs web), see James Joyce#References or Iowa Department of Education#Bibliography or ? (2011 film)#References or John Plagis#Notes and references or Gregor MacGregor#Notes and references. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

I think those are just elaborate footnotes for your first examples. PARAKANYAA (talk) 13:41, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

RfC notice: VisualEditor automatic reference names

Hi, I’m Johannes from Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team. We are considering to work on Community Wishlist/W17: Improve VE references' automatic names and reuse. This has been a long-term issue for wikitext editors (see e.g. WP:VisualEditor/Named references) which has been among the top-voted wishes in several Community Wishlist Surveys, e.g. 2017, 2019, 2022 or 2023.

Further information: m:WMDE Technical Wishes/References/VisualEditor automatic reference names

We would like your input on the solutions proposed on our project page. We are considering several options, which can be combined if desired by the community.

• Changing the default pattern for automatically generated reference names (currently ":n", e.g. ":0", ":1"...) to use the reference type instead (e.g. "book_reference-1").
• Providing a simple mechanism for communities to configure a different default name.
• Generating automatic reference names based on the domain name (if it’s a web citation).
• Generating automatic reference names based on template parameters (e.g. "title" or "last"+"first") – defined by the community.

Feedback

Visit our project page to read about our proposal in detail and share your thoughts on metawiki.

Please note: We will only implement a solution if there’s clear consensus among the global community. Our intention is not to build the perfect solution, but to find a simple and lean one that alleviates the pain caused by auto generated names. We are aware that some experienced VisualEditor users might prefer an option to manually change reference names in VisualEditor, but such a UX intervention is difficult to achieve across reference types and thus out of scope for our team, we can only improve the auto-naming mechanism. We are happy about suggestions for improving certain details of the proposed solutions. Any other feedback and alternative proposals are also welcome – even though it’s out of scope for us, it might still be relevant for future work on this topic.

Please support us interpreting consensus by clearly indicating your opinion (e.g. by using support/neutral/oppose templates). We are aware of WP:NOTVOTE, but given that we are facilitating this discussion with users from different wikis, potentially commenting in their native language, clearly indicating your position helps us avoid misunderstandings.

Thank you for participating! --Johannes Richter (WMDE) (talk) 11:54, 19 March 2026 (UTC)