This is an archive of past discussions about Help:Cite errors. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I have no idea what other officers who may not have liked Gen Robinett called him, but he was widely known ONLY as Robbie. This should be corrected as it reflects badly on him. As his niece, I know this for a fact. I knew my uncle very well from infancy to his death in 1975.
At Ahmed Zayat, which worked yesterday, I'm now getting the "Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page)." message... Montanabw (talk) 18:52, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
Aw whoops, I've been going back and forth between that one and American Pharoah (which DID have the same problem but also has {{notes}}, I must have confused the two. Swore is twa there at some point, but maybe I had a brain fart, wouldn't be the first time... Sigh... Montanabw(talk)03:02, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
References colour
You can't, for instance, format a reference with <ref style="color:red;">content</ref>, or give it an id. Why is this? For television series where the header row is coloured blue, references are basically invisible against them. Is there a way to colour references black/white? Alex|The|Whovian16:02, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
@AlexTheWhovian: The <ref>...</ref> tags look like HTML, but they aren't - they're a MediaWiki extension, see mw:Extension:Cite. You therefore cannot expect that <ref> would accept global HTML attributes like style=. Wrap it in a suitably-styled <span>...</span> element, as in <span style="background:white;"><ref>...</ref></span> Don't attempt to set color: - links should be left in their "natural" colours, blue for unvisited; purple for visited, etc. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:28, 13 September 2015 (UTC)
@PK2: I guess you mean on some article. Based on your contributions I guess it's Google Translate but at the time of your edit or before that I could find no cite errors. I then looked at your edits after posting here and found [1] which is broken because no reference has been defined with <ref name="CNET">...</ref>. I fixed that in [2] (diff to broken version). When you ask for help about something, please say where it is in a way that enables others to see the issue. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:25, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
{{help needed}}
Hi Admins/super users, can we exclude all except articles from this Cat, and place the help templates in the Cat blurb, for other backlog Cat's this also may apply as best practice, all old notice boards, draft etc should not be shown here, cheers The Original Filfi (talk) 22:55, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
If you're looking at namespaces to exclude, you might consider the list under "Notes" in Category:CS1 errors: arXiv, which we developed for all of the CS1 errors generated by a group of citation templates. It works very well. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:31, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
ThisCite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name defined multiple times with different content
This error is spawning along many pages after a recent software upgrade, but the related category doesn't seem to catch up with the new issue, is still around 200 pages and doesn't show some pages I've randomly seen, in it-wiki we still have more than 3,000 pages with this error. Is this problem discussed anywhere? Thanks for reply.--Demostene119 (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2015 (UTC)
I created a feature request in Phabricator for this. It should have been done as part of the creation of the error message, but it was missed, I guess.
@Demostene119: Sorry, it appears I was wrong. The Italian Wikipedia does things differently. it:MediaWiki:Cite error is also displayed for the error and it adds the category (the English MediaWiki:Cite error does not). I think the problem is instead that the link tables for the articles have not been updated since the error message was introduced. Some actions like a purge can rebuild the article itself and add new categories at the bottom without updating the corresponding category pages. A null edit (or any other edit) of the article would also update category pages. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:54, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
@PrimeHunter: Some cynical disruptive editing often gets by the bots and the frontline team, but filters into pages with incorrect formatting so doesn’t really slip through the net for long. However, I’m assuming that a filter has been triggered with the arrival of so many multiple defined reference error pages, which means those disruptive edits will probably now go unchecked.CV9933 (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
It's a recent feature in the software to detect these errors, and the categorization of them was added yesterday with my creation of MediaWiki:Cite error references duplicate key. Thousands of articles which had this problem for a long time are now being added to Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting. I guess editors, maybe with bot assistance, will work through this new backlog at some time and bring the category down to a small number again. It would be possible to make a separate tracking category for this specific cite eror but I'm not sure we should do it. Category:Pages with citation errors currently only shows three different categories for cite errors. There are many more types of cite errors than that at [3]. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:50, 20 October 2015 (UTC)
It is worth noting, for all who are reading this and care, that it typically takes weeks, or longer, for a new tracking category like this to "fill up" with articles. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:32, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Also note that the 24,000-odd articles in this list currently contain a nonsense error message in the reflist. For instance, in 1984 Atlantic hurricane season we see: Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "TD1" defined multiple times with different content (see ) (see the ). : Noyster (talk),08:45, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
It's not nonsense, it's drawing attention to a problem. There are two refs named TD1, and the first is
The programmer has submitted a patch for the stripped wikilink in phab:T116149.[4] I don't know when it will be live, assuming it's approved. I have removed the first "(see )" which was a test of the issue.[5] Affected pages must be purged to see it's removed. The second "(see the )" could be removed temporarily in {{Broken ref/lang}} by testing whether {{{help}}} equals Cite error references duplicate key, and then restored later when the issue is fixed, but I haven't done that. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
We are getting questions at the help desk about this error message. Upon fixing one I noted that the natural way to do so, at least for me, is to copy the defined ref name, then use find while editing an article. However, the message places underscores for any spaces in the ref name, so you have to remove them when finding. PrimeHunter suggested a fix for this at the help desk post of adding {{#invoke:String|replace|$1|_| }} Any thoughts on implementing a fix like this?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:48, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
Some corrections really need to be done manually. If the same reference name has been used for two different citations sometimes you can just change the ref name in one of the instances. However where the abbreviated version of the ref name has also been used, it isn't always easy to figure out which citation the abbreviated name is referring to. here is an example with "ReferenceB", if you see whatI mean. CV9933 (talk) 17:24, 23 October 2015 (UTC)
I have encountered this type of issue before. Sometimes you can just refresh the page and the error clears. However,the solution that I found was to enable a purge option in my wikipedia preferences gadget section. It displays a clock in my toolbar and when I click on the clock whilst on the page that is showing the error, the purge clears the issue. There may be other ways to do this but that is the one that worked for me. CV9933 (talk) 15:36, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
I have to say I don't think its a purge issue either. As I enabled that option which I can see the use of and the article is still showing in the list and the last edit was 3 March 2016. Haakonsson (talk) 19:23, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Just went through and fixed the refs in this article Conquest of 1760, but they cite two sources by last name only, and I don't see details on those anywhere.
(Also, can someone check my work? It's been a while.)
Knockwood Welcome back. This problem is the result of other editors copying from external sources and omitting the full reference. If you don't manage to trace the full ref I should restore the "Conway, 143" etc - this will remove the red error messages in the reference list - and add the {{Full citation needed}} template in-line. The other thing is that such queries would belong better on the article's talk page, in this case Talk:Conquest of 1760: Noyster (talk),12:06, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Spaces in Refnames...
In the case of
<ref name="abc def">XXX</ref>
<ref name="abc def">YYY</ref>
that the error message in the reflist is Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "abc_def" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
Is there an issue or related problem with the template {{Large category TOC 2}} here and other places where it is implemented? There seems to be a problem with alphabetical links taking you to the wrong place. For example if I click on pages beginning with Pa, it links to pages beginning with E. CV9933 (talk) 21:47, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, this problem is happening today because the WMF Community Tech Team is running a maintenance script to update category sorting. Once it's done, the new sorting will sort numbers correctly (99 before 100). The script started on August 29th at 18:00 UTC, and we're expecting it to take 24 hours to run. You can check out Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Sorting in categories unreliable for ~24 hours for more info.
If it helps, I've figured out a temporary workaround -- if you manually edit the URL to say (for example) &pagefrom=T, then it'll show you category entries further down the alphabet. It won't start with T, but the beginning of T should be in the results. Sorry for the current confusing state. -- DannyH (WMF) (talk) 23:08, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
Category sorting is still in progress, expected to be completed sometime during the weekend. Until then, expect strange Category pages. – Jonesey95 (talk) 14:58, 2 September 2016 (UTC)
Refs in articles about songs and sports
I noticed that some of the refs in articles about songs and sports teams are auto generated and i can't for the hell of it make out how, thus i won't touch that. MikeTango (talk) 20:48, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
@Redrose64: i basically started my quest with the list items sorted by date numbers, before A. After discovering that most of those containing standings tables or scores tables were beyond my comprehension, i went on to A. I think the amount of "Al-Quaeda does this or that" edits i did will put me on a no fly list or something. MikeTango (talk) 14:31, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
For a long time we have been hiding broken references on talk pages and a few more namespaces. The primary reason for this was that people were often copying fragments into a talk page in order to discuss them, but since there was no <references /> being copied in at the same time, these refs would all throw big ugly red errors and this was confusing, especially for new users. However, for a over a year now, we are automatically adding a references section (T68860). So most of these previously hidden errors would not actually occur anymore. Basically the only errors that are still being hidden, are pasted references that are part of a named group (without a <references /> for that group), or if they are totally different and valid errors. Perhaps it's time to stop hiding these broken refs ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 22:05, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
To editors TheDJ and Jonesey95: It's time to either get rid of this template or clearly explain its current use and value. Reading about this template simply left me confused...
This edit request to Help:Cite errors has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.
Information on THe Honourable Col. Gordon Sidney Harrington is wrong. He was born and died in Halifax. He was an Anglican. He was married to Katherine Agnes MacDonald. He was Minister of Mines and Public Works (not Labour) although he formed a department of Labour when he was premier.
Please ck the page as I tried to edit it and may have disrupted some material.
I am Carole MacDonald, author of Historic Glace Bay (Nimbus publishing 2009) and author of a thesis on The Hon.Col. Gordon Sidney Harrington "The Legacy of Gordon Sidney Harrington 1909- 1925" Saint Mary's University 2014 (online) and author upcoming biography of Col. Harrington Carole MacDonald (talk) 17:54, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
The category is added by {{Broken ref/cat}} with {{{sortkey|}}}{{PAGENAME}} as sort key. If the caller (usually another template) doesn't specify a sort key with |sortkey= then the page name is used. I don't know whether it was intentional to override a DEFAULTSORT but it makes the code simpler when there is code for an optional sortkey. I don't see a problem in overriding a DEFAULTSORT by forcing the page name as sort key. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:15, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Looking a little further, sortkey is used to specify a special initial character for other namespaces than mainspace: [6]. This would complicate the coding if mainspace pages have to respect DEFAULTSORT, and it would be impossible to combine the special character with non-mainspace pages respecting DEFAULTSORT in their internal sorting under the character. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Holy cow! Thanks for the awesome analysis, PrimeHunter. This helps me understand just a little more wikiStuff. -- Mikeblas (talk) 16:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Pat McMahon played for Ajax FC Chicago 6 years prior to his College soccer career.
I don't want to delete them from my personal account as it'd be "crossing the streams", and deleting from my staff account seems a bit icky in case someone objects for some reason. :-)
Looks like there's been tremendous, sudden progress in the duplicate ref defs list. Was something fixed, or maybe someone ran a bot? -- 16:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
I have been picking away at the list for the past few months, I also think a few additional people might have started working on it as well. --Imminent77(talk)16:48, 27 March 2017 (UTC)
Awesome. I've been working the E's, after finishing the C's. (Er, or did I do the D's?) Is there a place we should congregate and coordinate? -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:28, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
Imminent77 and Mikeblas, great! I've been working on the backlog as well. To add some numbers, I resurrected the old CatTrack tool at the beginning of this year, so you can see how the size changed. And I guess you could say someone ran a bot - I've been testing a new tool that makes going through the category a lot easier, called toollabs:yabbr. I've been told it's a bit tricky to use, but it basically parses the page to check for duplicate references and makes only the duplicate references editable. (Sure beats digging through pages of unrelated markup to find the references you want.) Enterprisey (talk!) 02:23, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Enterprisey I plan on trying out your tool sometime in the very near future to see how it works. I also wanted to ping PaleoNeonate as I know they have done some work in this category in the past and may be interested in your tool. --Imminent77(talk)16:00, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Mikeblas:Is there a place we should congregate and coordinate? The citation cleanup Wikiproject perhaps? Although there also probably are more general backlog related places... —PaleoNeonate - 04:25, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
{{Efn}} creating empty references
There's an "empty reference" error showing up at Cedar Glen Apartments. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why. If I use the {{Efn}} template without citations inside it, it works fine. If I use the <ref></ref> without the {{Efn}}, they generate fine. ARGH! Some years ago, if an editor used a <ref></ref> citation format in an {{Efn}} template without having that reference also appear outside the {{Efn}}, it caused problems. But that was resolved a long time ago. Is the problem back? - Tim1965 (talk) 15:32, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
@Tim1965: The problem was caused by the equals sign inside the footnote text; the template parser assumes that everything to the left of the equals is a parameter name. I've fixed it by adding "1=" at the start of the footnote text. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:41, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
@Épine: If an article uses "List-defined references", each reference defined inside the <references>...</references> must have a name. There's more detail and examples at WP:LDR. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:03, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Hi @John of Reading: thanks for the reply. I think I did exactly that here. but this error persisted along with some others for some reason that I don't know. I used the
@Épine: In that revision, there are unnamed references just after the named references "eja3628" and "iwoq1719". I can't immediately see the cause of the third of these messages. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:32, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
@John of Reading: aren't you referring to the ref name=? Because all of those has that. Now that I look back at the revision I see that in one of them I missed a = which caused one of the problems. is the quotation needed after the ref name=? (E.g. <Ref name="example">....)◂ épinetalk♬15:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
@Épine: There are a couple of references there with no name at all. Just after the reference "eja3628" there is <ref>{{cite book |title= A Student's Dictionary of Psychology|last=Statt |first=David A. |year=2004 |publisher=Psychology Press |location= |isbn=978-1841693422 |page=93 |pages= |url=}}</ref> and just after the reference "iwoq1719" there is <ref>{{harv|Dalzell|2008|p=1104}}</ref>. They should either be deleted entirely, or given a name and then used in the article text somewhere. The reference names only need to be quoted if they contain spaces or certain punctuation characters; the simple names can manage without quotes. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
Can someone tell me why I'm getting a harv error here but not here? The formatting is literally copied and pasted from one to the next, and it works in one but not the other. Parsecboy (talk) 13:02, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
@Parsecboy: You've run into phab:T22707 - footnotes often don't work when called from within list-defined footnotes. A quick fix is to swap the two "efn" definitions over, so that the one with the sfn is defined first - that's how fragile the software is. A longer-lasting fix would be to define the efn notes up in the text of the article where they are first used. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:28, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
<My source was not defined well. Where it says "Bauman M", It should be changed to this:
<My source is my own medical history, The Cleveland Clinic & The University Hospitals of Cleveland. MBau4 (I/me) was treated for Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome at the Cleveland Clinic in 2000 and at The University Hospitals from 2001 through 2004 without CHS being identified or defined as the cause at that time. All of CHS's symptoms were present including, cyclic episodes of nausea, uncontrollable vomiting & cramps fueled by massive cannabinoid consumption that were alleviated by bathing in a huge bath tub on the 4th floor and by the cessation of the consumption over a period usually taking 3 to 4 days or so. The doctors had no precedent for the condition and hypothesized that it could be nerves, or the early stages of a diabetic digestive condition called "gastroparesis". They never diagnosed it as CHS.> M Bau4 (talk) 15:09, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
The page says There are <ref group=$1> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=$1}} template (see the help page).
My concern arose from the Multivitamin article, but there are at least 30 articles with this cite error today. Updating the article would be the best way to answer my concern.--Dthomsen8 (talk) 21:25, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
@Dthomsen8: It goes wherever you like, provided that it's no earlier than the last note - that is, the <ref group=...>...</ref> for the named group. If there's only one note, the reflist might go at the bottom of the same section. If there are several notes, the reflist is often put just before or just after the main list of references; and in the case of the article that you mention, I see no reason not to do this. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:29, 14 March 2019 (UTC)
Curly quotes
I suggest text be added to this Help Page to warn editors away from using curly quotes and to use straight quotes when defining "name". Curlies will produce the error: "invoked but not never defined". DonFB (talk) 19:31, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
The Talk tab at the linked "better place" page you recommend takes me to this page, as did clicking on the Talk tab at the Help Page linked from the Cite Error message generated by the original error in the article. The Talk tab at "MediaWiki:Cite error references no text" link also goes to this page.
Above, you said curly quotes produce the "never defined" error if they are used in <ref name=... /> without a matching definition. Do you mean if the original ref name uses curly quotes, then all other curly usages for that ref name would be a match and thus would not generate an error (because all the characters match, though not parsed as quote marks—assuming no spaces or other stray characters)? As you may have noticed in my correction to the article, the problem arose because of a mix of straight and curly quotes in different locations for the same ref name. Hoping for a uniform misuse of curly quotes for a given ref name throughout an article in order to prevent an error is of course not a desirable approach. Help:Footnotes has helpful instructions not to use curly quotes in the ref name format. Wp:Citing_sources#Repeated_citations does not have such an instruction, but should, so consider this a direct request to add it. As I mentioned at Village Pump today, an explicit directive about curly quotes instead of the generic "never defined" would certainly be helpful and time-saving in an actual error message. DonFB (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
This is a centralized talk page with redirects from other talk pages. I meant you should name the page to change and not say "this Help Page". Yes, if the original ref name uses curly quotes, then all other curly usages for that ref name would be a match and not generate an error, as demonstrated here.[1][1] I agree we should not hope for a uniform misuse of curly quotes. At Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Curly quotes in <ref name = > I said: "All curly quotes should still be changed to straight quotes to avoid confusion and future errors." But we shouldn't use incorrect claims to justify good advice. If the original ref name has curly quotes and the attempted reuse has straight quotes then MediaWiki:Cite error references no text is only called for the straight quotes and we cannot give an accurate error message. If the attempted reuse has curly quotes but does not match a definition then MediaWiki:Cite error references no text can warn against curly quotes but it will not know whether there is "match" with straight quotes. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
To clarify: I assume when you say can warn against curly quotes, you mean that attempted reuse with curlies could, but does not in current practice, generate a curly warning, since that was the case I came across—a generic but not specific error message caused by attempted reuse with curlies. In other words, is the code (and perhaps the software engineers) amenable to implementing a modification that can give a specific warning about attempted reuse with curlies? Getting back to my original purpose in posting on this page: it is the Talk page of the Help Page to which I was directed by a link in the original error message. That's why I requested the additional instruction on "this Help Page"; it is the first Help page that will be reached by an editor who clicks the link in the Error message I saw. Therefore, why not put an instruction about curlies directly on "this Help Page"? (In addition, as I've said, the instruction should be added to the Repeated Citations section of Citing Sources.) DonFB (talk) 01:36, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Your clarification is correct. MediaWiki:Cite error references no text is currently a customized message at the English Wikipedia. A local administrator like me can edit it with immediate effect here. The default message for MediWiki wikis can be seen at MediaWiki:Cite error references no text/qqx. A change of this default to affect all wikis without a customized version would have to be requested elsewhere, e.g. at phab:, but I doubt the MediaWiki developers would complicate it with a conditional message for a potential cause. On this talk page, "this Help Page" refers to Help:Cite errors. Centralized talk pages sometimes cause confusion when posters don't say which redirect they came from (many possibilities here). It would certainly be possible to mention the issue both on Help:Cite errors and Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text. The latter seems more relevant when the help link for the error goes there. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:23, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Curly quotes can be deceptive where the ref name is intended to include a space. Consider the following:
Statement 1.<refname=“JohnSmith”>Smith, John. "A book". p. 123</ref> Statement 2.<refname=“JohnBrown”>Brown, John. "A completely different book". p. 48</ref> Statement 3.<refname=“JohnSmith”/> Statement 4.<refname=“JohnBrown”/>
PrimeHunter, ok, here's my plan of action, unless there is objection. I will add a one- or two-sentence instruction to the Help page directly associated with this Talk page. It will instruct editors to look for curly quotes in a non-working repeat citation and replace curlies with straight quotes; and will urge editors not to use curly quotes in ref name formation. I might include additional information that no quotes are needed unless the ref name has a space. At the Citing Sources Talk page, I will request addition of a similar instruction in its Repeated Citations section. As you indicate, many different error messages can occur, but if they all point to the Help page associated with this Talk page, that's where a (currently absent) curly instruction should be added. DonFB (talk) 20:53, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
Add: The "Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text", which is the Help page associated with the "never defined" Error, also does not contain any instruction about curly quotes, so I plan to add info there as well. DonFB (talk) 21:40, 23 April 2019 (UTC)
References
^ abThis reference has curly quotes in ref name (at least at the time of posting, it might be "fixed" later).
^ abcdSmith, John. "A book". p. 123 Cite error: The named reference "“John" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
An apparently undocumented case of an error category with no error message
The error category Category:User pages with reference errors is present, but there is no red error message. As far as I can see, the only explanation on this Help page is for a URL with an = character in it, which I do not have. If I add the {{NoteFoot}} template, the error category goes away, but it is not clear to me what the generalized explanation for this error is.
If you can explain that one, maybe you can help with the real problem, which is in User:Lord Bolingbroke/John Bunny. The section called "Legacy and scholarly analysis" appears to be causing the error, but I fail to see how it is different from the other sections. Also, a {{NoteFoot}} template exists in the article; even if I move it to the very end of the page, the error category is still applied.
Thanks, I thought I had managed to turn on all error messages related to references, but I had missed this one. I found the actual problem and worked around it in the draft article. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:53, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
<ref name=IrIX>{{cite journal |last=Wang |first=Guanjun |last2=Zhou |first2=Mingfei |last3=Goettel |first3=James T. |last4=Schrobilgen |first4=Gary G. |last5=Su |first5=Jing |last6=Li |first6=Jun |last7=Schlöder |first7=Tobias |last8=Riedel |first8=Sebastian |date=2014 |title=Identification of an iridium-containing compound with a formal oxidation state of IX |journal=Nature |volume=514 |pages=475–477 |doi=10.1038/nature13795}}</ref>
Template:Infobox_element/symbol-to-oxidation-state has
<ref name=IrIX>{{cite journal |last=Wang |first=Guanjun |last2=Zhou |first2=Mingfei |last3=Goettel |first3=James T. |last4=Schrobilgen |first4=Gary G. |last5=Su |first5=Jing |last6=Li |first6=Jun |last7=Schlöder |first7=Tobias |last8=Riedel |first8=Sebastian |date=2014|title=Identification of an iridium-containing compound with a formal oxidation state of IX |journal=Nature |volume=514 |issue=7523 |pages=475–477 |doi=10.1038/nature13795|pmid=25341786|bibcode=2014Natur.514..475W }}</ref>
I think that I have fixed these two, and a couple of other reference errors that I found while poking through that complex set of templates. AManWithNoPlan (talk·contribs): Please be more careful when editing templates. The single edit linked above caused reference errors in at least a half-dozen other templates and some or all of the articles that transclude them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:55, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. A maze of twisty little passages. I spent an hour or more tracking down duplicate references in these templates, and I got very confused multiple times. I don't blame AManWithNoPlan for making this honest error, but pretty much everything in Template space requires a bit more care, and often testing and discussion, and careful manual edits with lots of previewing. It's generally not a place for bots and scripts that cause very little trouble in article space. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Suggestion: Warn before saving edit with duplicate reference name.
I just tried to fix the reference tag for Continuity Irish Republican Army, and in the process of doing so, inadvertently raised the four navigation boxes in the article between the first and second reference links. I can't find a way to fix this problem without creating the latter one. What am I doing wrong? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 17:00, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
Although a bare = sign appears to be acceptable within <ref> tags, such as <ref> a = a </ref>, it is not acceptable within a {{refn}} template. {{refn | a = a}} fails with the standard error message for empty <ref> tags: "Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see thehelp page)." which redirects to the help page "Cite errors/Cite error ref no input". This is easily fixed by enclosing the equals sign within pairs of curly braces, {{=}}, or beginning the phrase with "1=". This fix should be mentioned on this help page. — Joe Kress (talk) 01:16, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
@Joe Kress: It is not the behaviour of {{refn}} specifically - it is normal behaviour for templates that if a parameter contains an equals sign, it is treated as a named parameter. So |a=a means 'assign the value a to the parameter named a'. You don't need the extra braces - simply number the parameter, as in {{refn |1= a = a}}. This is covered by the first bullet at Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:22, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
That information is useless to anyone who does not know it and receives the error message "Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see thehelp page)." That user would be perplexed because he did not use any <ref> tags, and furthermore he included content. There would be no problem if the error message directed him to Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds. But it doesn't – it directs him here, so this Help page should cover that situation for all templates. — Joe Kress (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)
The {{refn}} template uses {{#tag:ref|...}} to simulate <ref>...</ref> tags, either way we can't control how they behave. The error message is a general one, nothing to do with templates, it happens if I do this:Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page).
Change birthdate to August 8, 1812
Add town of birth Spencer, Tioga County, New York.
Change Died to April 2, 1902 - age 89.
Change Known for Nation's first female judge.
Change in Spouse(s) Artemas Slack (M. 1841-1843) his death and John Morris (M. 1846-1877) his death.
(shown in the reference book: Esther Hobart Morris The Unembellished Story or the Nation's First Female Judge, by Kathryn Swim Cummings published by High Plains Press October 25, 2019.) I am the author of the above book: Kathryn Swim Cummings. This book to be added as reference 21.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).
[1]</syntaxhighlight> occurs twice in this revision, where it throws an error; but although it also occurs twice in the previous one, it doesn't throw an error there. It was fixed by the next edit. I never did like LDR. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:09, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
I saw that too. The "HighSnobiety" duplicate ref error appeared only after I commented out the unused "HomeMediaIGN" reference. I wonder if those references could be copied to a sandbox in a much smaller version of the article in order to try to reproduce the problem. I also checked the NewPP limit report (use View Source in your browser), and the page did not appear to be hitting any processing limits. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:17, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
And here's a simplified case. This version of my sandbox (almost) has three references in the LDR: one is unused, and two have the same name but different contents. The page shows zero errors. If you fix either of the errors, an error message shows up. It was only after looking at this simplified case that I realized that the unused "HomeMediaIGN" reference is missing a closing ref tag. That explains why the duplicate "HighSnobiety" reference was not causing an error message, because it got sucked into the unused "HomeMediaIGN" reference. The unused reference should still generate an error, though. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:25, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
Help please :)
I'm editing my partner's page Steven Bernstein (Filmmaker) and this message appears at the top: "Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)". Can someone tell me how to fix it or please fix it for me ;) ? Thanks so much, (Ladybird888 (talk) 19:08, 17 October 2020 (UTC))
Should I try to convince you that those are fine, or are we going to have to hunt down an interface admin to add .mw-parser-output to update all of those (or have yet another discussion about interface admins editing personal user scripts, more likely)? Or perhaps the last option which is leave a user talk notice on some 80 person's pages. --Izno (talk) 17:03, 28 October 2020 (UTC)
On page MediaWiki:Cite error/en-ca, please replace {{MediaWiki:Cite error}} with {{MediaWiki:Cite error|nocat={{{nocat|}}}}} to allow passing value for parameter |nocat= of Template:Broken ref.
Please also add parameter |nocat={{{nocat|}}} for all other cite error page for language code en-ca:
Subpages for language code pt-br have a typo. They use incorrect {{{notcat|}}} instead of correct {{{nocat|}}} – note the additional letter "t" in the parameter name:
@Andrybak:if we're going to start passing parameters to this page, would it better to move it to the more appropriate namespace (i.e. Template)? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
Is it possible to prevent Help:Cite errors/Cite error group refs without references from being listed on this page? I feel that it does not belong here, as it is not a "missing" reference list, it is deliberately not there. Putting it on this page implies there is a problem with that page, but of course, there is not. Is it possible to link it elsewhere on this page (for example, as a wikilink on the word "repaired" in the sentence "The pages Template:Broken ref, Help:Cite errors, and subpages contain deliberate errors and do not need to be repaired."). However, as I am definitely not a programmer, I have no idea if this is even possible. Is this something that can be done? HouseBlaster (talk) 19:08, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
You have to write [[:Category:...]] with colon in front to link the category page instead of adding the page to the category. I fixed your post. PrimeHunter (talk) 16:53, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
Cite error: The ref tag has too many names (see the help page).
'Cite error: The <ref> tag has too many names (see the help page).' is a notice displayed on the wiki page for Indooroopilly that I have recently come across, and unfortunately I'm not advanced enough with wiki edits to know how to fix it!
This is in reference to Help:Cite errors/Cite error ref no input. You'll get that error message ("There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them") if you accidentally put a double pipe in an {{efn}} template: {{efn||Oops}}. The reason isn't necessarily obvious when you get the error. You may want to mention this.
I couldn't demo it here because it only seems to happen in article space, not talk space. In talk or User space, the {{efn}} just disappears. Dan Bloch (talk) 04:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
The issue is not specific to this template. All templates that use unnamed parameters are susceptible to this - the parameters are position-dependent (so are sometimes called positional parameters) and each pipe marks a position. So in {{efn||Oops}} the first positional parameter is the null string, and the word "Oops" is now in the second positional parameter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:54, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
Lin Huiyin
I am trying to change an entry to Lin Huiyin, but am struggling with the refs. She did not attend St Mary's College in Twickenham but St Mary's Convent School in Hampstead. Source:[2]— Preceding unsigned comment added by Stuartrlyons (talk • contribs) 14:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
@Lyn50: Try surrounding your code with "nowiki" tags. These turn off the special meaning of the various brackets and delimiter characters, so that they can be read: <nowiki>your sample code goes here</nowiki> -- John of Reading (talk) 07:02, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
Thanks.
In the list at the foot of the edit page headed
;Specific
{{Refend}}
{{Reflist|refs=
I put this:
<ref name="Johnstone"/>{{cite book |last=Johnstone|first=Damian|author-link= |date=2001|title=The Wild One: The life and times of Johnny O'Keefe|url= |location=Crows Nest NSW|publisher=Allen & Unwin|page=175-6|isbn=1865084794}}</ref>
Then in the text of the article I put this after after the words needing a citation.
<ref name="Johnstone"/>
I tried to format it the way all the other successfully added references are formatted, but I get all these bold red error messages:
"Cite error: The named reference Johnstone was invoked but never defined (see the help page)."
"Cite error: A list-defined reference with the name "Johnstone" has been invoked, but is not defined in the <references> tag (see the help page)."
Lyn50, one good way to ask a question involving formatting or error messages is to make a change to an article, then immediately revert your change. You can then post a question with a link to the article (like this: Johnny O'Keefe), and helpful editors like us can look at your edits and try to figure out where things went wrong. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:33, 31 October 2021 (UTC)
Confusing error message
I am a novice to Wikipedia. I tried to add a supporting newspaper article reference to a wikipedia article and was rewarded with Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).. Any suggestions?
Re: The named reference $1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
This error also occurs if one uses a ref entry whose name contains digits. I don't see this noted anywhere. This happened when I was editing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Sun to add the reference to the Doeblin prize. I used the name wdp2020 initially and after many tries just made it wd, which worked.
171.64.102.22 (talk) 21:41, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I've fixed them, but be aware that that isn't the purpose of this page. You should be able to fix errors yourself from the instructions in the error description page. This talk page is to discuss problems with the instructions if they don't help. Regards, Dan Bloch (talk) 01:00, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
How to resolve cite errors
I am seeing the following error.
Cite error: The named reference ":1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). Cite error: The named reference ":1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page). Cite error: The named reference ":1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
The error links to the help page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Cite_errors/Cite_error_references_duplicate_key. However, the help page only resolves the issue using the Wikipedia markup format. I am new to Wiki and have not been able to learn the markup fast enough. I have been adding supporting sources and references without changing the markup, which I think works a lot better and makes contributing easier. However, it appears the resolution is only available after digging into the markup code to identify the inconsistencies.
Fix minor errors in the "Plot" Summary for Dave (1993 film)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
For what it's worth 2 Corrections need to be made for the 1993 political satire film Dave starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.
1) Dave Kovic's Employment Agency and home was in a non descript small town in the Pacific Northwest (either the state of Washington or Oregon).
2) It was Dave's "BROTHER-IN-LAW" (from Dave's deceased wife) Not "FRIEND" Murray that helps him secure the funding for the homeless shelters. BTW minor note: Murray often employs most of Dave's employees from Dave's temp service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:346:1000:7BD0:0:0:0:7197 (talk) 18:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Will this error be fixed by a bot?
"Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BBC_2005" is not used in the content (see the help page)."
@Chidgk1: A bot could delete them, but really it takes a human editor to work out what has happened. For example, if a large chunk of text has been deleted without explanation, leaving references unused, then a better fix is probably to put the text back again. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:59, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
@John of Reading: Thanks for quick answer. We have 22 at Effects of climate change after correct deletions. I don't suppose there is a "Guild of Wikignomes" equivalent to the GOCE. I tried running "Expand citations" but that did not fix them. I guess I will just have to wait until the article is stable before going through and deleting them manually, as no doubt there will be more of these errors soon as tidying proceeds. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:21, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
@John of Reading: I deleted those 22 manually - which was tedious - and now there are 19 more. What if I just delete all the "list defined references"? Would a bot put the ones which are still used back in do you know? Chidgk1 (talk) 12:14, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Great - I cannot see the point of keeping them in a reflist anyway as the article does not have a fixed cite style now anyway (2 were merged) - will do it Chidgk1 (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
Phantom category
(Forgot that this was centralised. Context: See {{Broken ref}} and its doc page)
Ive been trying to figure out why this and the main/sandbox pages are getting put under the Category:Pages_with_incorrect_ref_formatting category. According to my "high-level investigation"(removing text and hitting show preview until the category dissapeared), its to do with the {{broken ref/cite error list}} section.
However no matter what i change, the category stays. And the actual list page itself is fully nocat'd, and doesnt have the category. And the errors dont produce if i take the exact same page content onto my own sandbox testing place. What the hell is going on here? Am i just stupid? Thanks. Aidan9382(talk)12:24, 11 April 2022 (UTC)
The first item on the indented list states that "quotation marks are optional" in some cases, but they need not be used only when spaces are not used. Therefore the introducing sentence before the list: "If spaces are used ..." is in discrepancy with what first item says, making all the explanation illogical.
The introducing statement should be changed to
"The following technical restrictions, relative to the characters used, hold:"
---here the list---, and the first sentence in the first item should end with
"and the symbols !$%&()*,-.:;<@[]^_`{|}~ without spaces."
Please also, insert into the list, preferably somewhere near the beginning of the subsection "Names", an information about acceptable length of name:
"Name can be at most 1011 characters long, independently of the type of characters (1 byte or 2 byte), not counting quotation marks if used. A longer name does not cause error message, but then functionality is not guaranteed."
This article cites Jerome A. Greene, "Washita" Chap. 8p.169 quoting Captain Fredrick Benteen of the Seventh Cavalry and Army Scout Ben Clark as saying George Armstrong Custer "sexually assaulted" Monahseetah. What Fredrick Benteen and Ben Clark actually said, and accurately quoting Jerome Greene, is that Custer "co-habited" with Monahseetah. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregory urbach (talk • contribs) 09:42, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
@Gregory urbach: Im not really sure what you're asking for help with here. I've gone ahead and fixed the citation errors on the page if that's what you intended to ask for help with, but otherwise I'm not sure. Aidan9382(talk)13:32, 4 May 2022 (UTC)
"There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page)."
This error message comes up after I added a reference source, but I'm not sure how to correct it or what's the next move. The help page is not providing any clear guidance. Thanks. Rounatenk (talk) 23:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I keep getting a message that a fef tag is missing. What am I doing Wrong?
Page 1st nomination 1960-1969.
I'm trying to verify the countries where Nobel Prize Literature nominees were from. The page mistakenly gives Alejo Carpentier's birthplace as Lausanne, Switzerland, when Wikipedia gives it as Havana, Cuba. When I try changing it, I keep getting a message that a ref tag is missing. What am I doing Wrong? 45kerdall (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
I understand from the documentation that the template call is supposed to be wrapped in noincludes to suppress the display of the cited source in articles that transclude it, but in this use case I do want the source to display. I briefly added the source as element in the template content before I learned of Template:Template reference list. My story is that most of the pages that call Template:100 Most Common Family Names in Mainland China also call Template:Surname immediately thereafter, the purpose of which is to help editors repair dablinks. That template output sits in between the content of the "100 names" template and its reference list.
I'm wondering if there's any way for someone to edit Template reference list to force the display of the reference list (if the call is not noincludeed) immediately after the content of the template that transcludes it, for editors using the template reference list in a way not intended per guidance.
Hello, someone out here to take a look at the articl? Reference [67] states Cite error: The named reference Vapiano S.R.O was invoked but never defined. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 04:41, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
I need help about the references for Konstantinos Stephanopoulos. I made a mistake. I don't know what to do. Can you help me fix and restore to normal. 100.2.114.167 (talk) 00:33, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
I believe I've fixed it, though I took two edits to do it. Reference 1 now uses the working URL that you added, and I've added the English translation of the headline. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:20, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
The error message explains the problem: Cite error: The named reference "WHO-reports" was defined multiple times with different content. Here are the four references named "WHO-reports", copied from the four templates:
<ref name=WHO-reports>[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Weekly Epidemiological Update and Weekly Operational Update]. From [[World Health Organization]] (WHO). Additional info on cases and deaths. Early reports have detailed data by country.</ref>
<ref name=WHO-reports>[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Weekly Epidemiological Update and Weekly Operational Update]. From [[World Health Organization]]. Additional info on cases and deaths. Early reports have detailed data by country.</ref>
<ref name=WHO-reports>[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Weekly Epidemiological Update and Weekly Operational Update]. From [[World Health Organization]] (WHO). Additional info on cases and deaths. Early reports have detailed data by country.</ref>
<ref name=WHO-reports>[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Weekly Epidemiological Update and Weekly Operational Update]. From [[World Health Organization]] (WHO). Additional info on cases and deaths. Early reports have detailed data by country.</ref>
I quoted the reference: David Collins, An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales
The system tells me this is an error because it has too many words
How many words are allowed? How can I quote the reference? Hoydan (talk) 00:29, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
You can see this source cited here. There are other ways to do it, but that way works. If you can't make it work, provide a link to the article where we can see the error. – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:02, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
References appear only on the template references page?
This message appears in the 'template references list', but I am doubtful whether it is a correct statement.
These references will appear in the article, but this list appears only on this page.
It doesn't mean that the refs will not appear at all, but that they will appear in the article's proper references list, not at the position where the template is used. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:17, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
Help
Hi! I'm stuck. I don't know what's wrong with the references. As you can see on article List of songs recorded by Tomorrow X Together, the first song have two errors. Firstly, I put <ref name="FE"/> on 9 songs and it works. Same goes to the second error, I put the same <ref name="CW"/> on "Ito" and "Magic" and it works. Please help. Perghhh (talk) 12:48, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
@Mark Zaborske: First, you're on the wrong page for that - this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Help:Cite errors. Second, the Wikimedia Foundation already has a sizeable group of programmers, both paid and unpaid; see MediaWiki for more information. If you really want to volunteer for some programming tasks, there is a Developers link at the bottom of every page, including this one. --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 22:16, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
Cite error: The named reference fortu2000 was invoked but never defined
At the top of this page it says: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Cite errors page", so this is the wrong place for your question. Assuming that your question relates to Draft:Brand: Mahram the word "help" in the error message directs to Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text which explains your problem. In your infobox you have called up a citation <ref name="fortu2000"/> but you have not defined the named reference "fortu2000". - David Biddulph (talk) 09:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Unclear advice
Not user friendly in the slightest. Under the section- Reference links show in the body of the article, but do not show in the reference list.The solutions are not clear. They should not say missing template but tell you where exactly and how to fix it. I have this problem but none the wiser on how to fix it. It should give a link to a video or some other examples on how to fix it. Wiki is not really for regular users but those who are used to programming it appears. Supermack01 (talk) 12:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Sorry you find the instructions to be unclear. The simplest way I can explain this to you is that this category is a maintenance category which is designed for people generally more technically proficient to assist people who have this specific error on their page. I have just cleared the back-log of over 200 page that had this error. The error message usually includes the solution. It will tell you for example that you have references that use the {{efn}} template and that this requires that the template {{notelist}} must appear somewhere on your page. I hope that helps? BoonDock (talk) 04:58, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
How do you duplicate a citation for different content?
How do you duplicate a citation for different content? I have tried the content 1 and content 2 but then the citation only says "content 1" and "content 2". Can you give me an example so I can copy and paste it?
I don't think you are in the correct place for help on this, but feel free to click on my username and it will take you to my user page. You can leave a message there explaining your problem and I will do my best to assist you. BoonDock (talk) 05:00, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
Listing inappropriate pages
There should be an easy way to omit pages that should not be fixed, like
Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard/Archive 15
Maybe an identifier in the page, and a change to this application to ignore pages with the specific identifier that could be added to Archive pages.
I've worked to clear the CAT:REF page. On the summary it stays as a "backlog" because of the 70 odd pages in the category which are either help pages, or are pages in the noticeboard, pump, requests for feedback etc.
Is there some way we could exclude those pages which are not articles from the category? BoonDock (talk) 21:59, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
@BoonDock: I've adjusted the category header so that the "backlog" message will disappear when the category drops below 80; you can tweak it yourself at any time. Many of the help pages belong in the category because that is the topic they provide help on, and I don't think it's worth expending effort on the sandboxes, archives and so on. The category sort makes it easy to see the important pages that need to be fixed - and congratulations on getting the category so clear. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:58, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
I'm trying to cite the same publication that's written multiple, different articles about the same topic. How can I cite the same publication with the different articles it's published? Redwoodtree23 (talk) 00:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
Cite error: There are<ref group=lower-alpha>tags or{{efn}}templates on this page, but the references will not show without a{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}template or{{notelist}}template (see thehelp page).Sahaz1505 (talk) 07:47, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
I'm always baffled about the Cite error: $1. It's easy enough to fix when I've introduced it (though I never remember what caused it). But I was trying to clear two of them in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and I've no idea what's causing it. Perhaps there should be more detail in this error message. Nfitz (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
@Nfitz: That's curious. Are you seeing the bare message "Cite error: $1"? At the foot of the article I'm seeing the messages...
Ah, that's interesting, User:John of Reading. When I change to that new default skin (Vector 2022? - by using an Incognito window), I too see the messages. I wonder why they don't work in Vector 2010. Here's a link forcing Vector 2010 where you should see the errors. Digging deeper, it's broken in all other other skins - including Zebra. Nfitz (talk) 07:14, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
You nailed it. Nothing to do with the skins. I'm using Canadian English - which breaks it in every skin, including Vector 2022. I tried a few other languages, and all seem fine - even Louisiana French (?!?). I'm out of my depth here on where the error lies. Nfitz (talk) 09:02, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
This sort of thing happens quite a lot: generally speaking, setting either of the two English variants (en-CA and en-GB) is a bad move, there has been plenty on the matter at WP:VPT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:08, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Interesting! I've always had it set for either GB or CA (at least for decade or more), and hadn't noticed. Though I've seen this particular CITE problem for years. I've no desire to set it to USA settings ... I'm surprised it doesn't pick up the language from Windows - but I guess that's not part of the design. Incognito is a quick kludge though. Thanks! I'll go fix those extra references now, so that will invalidate this example - but it's preserved in the historic version. Nfitz (talk) 18:21, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
The option "en - English" is not USA English (if it were, it would probably be described as "American English" in the selection list). It's an internationalised form that we have recommended for many years now, not least of which is the fact that en-CA and en-GB are so badly maintained. It also should be understandable to anybody for whom some variety of English is used in day to day communication. Generally, you should use "en - English" unless you want something radically different, such as French, German or Japanese. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:20, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
It looks awfully USAised to be an international form, with all the non-standard spellings. Also - in an international context, American can be anywhere in the Americas. Like Central America. South America, Latin America, and even the former British North America. I'd think English English would be closer to an international standard than anything else; less so GB English which includes Scots. I wonder what they use in the EU and UN. This is a topic I don't usually discuss at Wikipædia. Nfitz (talk) 20:28, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I've been working to clear out the Cat Category:Pages with missing references list, but I wondered about this page. Due to the errors on the page itself which are there intentionally, it then lists the page within this Cat. Is there a way of keeping said errors on the page, but taking it out - or hiding it - from the Cat? It's not important, it would just be really nice to have it empty. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 20:21, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
Resolved
