Help talk:Cite errors/Archive 4: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:33, 19 May 2012

Latest revision as of 19:15, 7 May 2022

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{{archivetan}}

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A class has been added to {{tl|broken ref}} so that errors on talk and other pages will show if enabled in [[Special:MyPage/skin.css]]. This does not add the page to a maintenance category.

<sourcesyntaxhighlight lang="css">

span.brokenref {

display: inline;

}

</syntaxhighlight>

</source>

For example, an error will show here if this is enabled.<ref></ref>

---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 13:39, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

== Fixing broken reference name: what if it was initially broken? ==

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So, how to fix these broken refs? Delete them? [[User:Korrawit|Korrawit]] ([[User talk:Korrawit|talk]]) 05:51, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

:If they are broken from the start, then you have no way to fix them. Remove the broken ref and discuss it with the editor who added it. I suspect that they did a copy/paste from another article. ---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 10:36, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

::Thanks[[User:Korrawit|Korrawit]] ([[User talk:Korrawit|talk]]) 13:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

== Question: Who decided that refs should display a big red message when their personal stylistic preferences aren't followed ==

I'm just wondering who weighed the options and decided that a big unruly red message borking up an article is the means to justify the end - that being "descriptive ref names"? This is the case where if you name a ref with a number, an error message states that the ref name can't be an integer and should be more descriptive. There have been many cases were a year is far more appropriate to use as the name, but can't be because somebody has ensured that this template imposes their personal preferences. - '''[[User:Floydian|<fontspan colorstyle="color:#5A5AC5;">ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ</fontspan>]]'''&nbsp;^{[[User_talk:Floydian|<fontsup colorstyle="color:#3AAA3A;">τ</fontsup>]]} _{[[Special:Contributions/Floydian|<fontsub colorstyle="color:#3AAA3A;">¢</fontsub>]]} 11:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

:The error is generated by the {{cite.php}} software extension— you can look at the code versions to see the authors. When the extension generates an error, it calls a MediaWiki interface page that defines the displayed message.

:I think your issue is that you can't use an integer as a reference name. Looking at the HTML output, the entries in the reference list are given HTML ids such as <code>cite_ref-0</code> for an unnamed reference and <code>cite_ref-''name''-0</code> for a named reference. By using an integer, there is some chance that the software may generate duplicate ids which would result in invalid HTML and ambiguous links. You can easily resolve this by prefixing the integer with a character like an asterisk or percent. ---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 13:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

== no bot? ==

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I'm confused. I've found two articles with the error message <code><nowiki>"Cite error: <ref> tag with name "<whatever>" defined in <references> is not used in prior text; see the help page"</nowiki></code>, yet the references with those names ''are'' used within the infobox. But the reference markers within the infoboxes have the wrong numbers and don't jump you down to the footnotes section.

At [[TheTERA Exiled(video Realm of Arboreagame)|TERA]], there is an error message about an unused footnote named "distributor", and the footnote marker next to the "Distributor" field in the infobox is broken. At [[The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings]] the infobox has references numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 1 which don't work, and then two references for the "Ratings" numbered 1, 2 which ''do'' jump to references 1 and 2 in the footnotes section.

I'm fairly sure that this problem is new since 19th April. On that date I fixed a cite error in [[The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings]] by commenting out an unused reference, and, I hope, I would have noticed the other three error messages if they had been there on that date. Very little has happened to the article since then. -- [[User:John of Reading|John of Reading]] ([[User talk:John of Reading|talk]]) 10:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

:There is some odd interaction with {{tl|vgreleaseVideo newgame release}}. I commented it out of [[TheTERA Exiled(video Realm of Arboreagame)|TERA]] to fix the problem for now. ---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 11:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

::Removing the months and days makes the problem disappear too - <code><nowiki>{{vgreleaseVideo newgame release|KOR|2011|NA|2012|EU|2012}}</nowiki></code>. The year-only case is handled specially by the first test in {{tp|Date sortable}}, so it must be the following block beginning "#iferror". This doesn't look good. Could this be a side-effect of the MediaWiki upgrade? -- [[User:John of Reading|John of Reading]] ([[User talk:John of Reading|talk]]) 12:08, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

:::Good question. Do we have a downlevel test wiki? See [[User:Gadget850/a10]] for some testing on this issue.---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 12:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

::::[https://test2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Here] is a note that they are running 1.20wmf1. I've stripped away a few more levels of templates at [[User:John of Reading/X3]], which might help. -- [[User:John of Reading|John of Reading]] ([[User talk:John of Reading|talk]]) 14:21, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

:::::By coincidence, I have been working on Error: Invalid time. The {{tl|dts}} series of templates stuff the sortable part inside {{code|display:none}} which suppresses the error message and makes troubleshooting a pain; see [[MediaWiki talk:Common.css#Parser function errors]]. I don't see Error: Invalid time in [[The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings]] HTML. ---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 15:18, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

::::::{{tp|vgreleaseVideo newgame release}} calls down to {{tp|Date sortable}}. Is that one of the templates that you'd expect to populate the category? The documentation for {{tp|vgreleaseVideo game newrelease}} says that you can pass any text you like instead of a date, "such as a message indicating the game is still in development or was cancelled". It is relying on #time to spot whether the parameter is a date or not, and this mustn't put the article into any error categories. -- [[User:John of Reading|John of Reading]] ([[User talk:John of Reading|talk]]) 15:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

[[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Named refs and #time errors]] ---'''''—&nbsp;[[User:Gadget850|<span style="color:gray">Gadget850&nbsp;(Ed)</span>]]'''''<span style="color:darkblue">&nbsp;'''''</span>^{[[User talk:Gadget850|''talk'']]} 23:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)