Help:Automatically generated reference list: Difference between revisions

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Latest revision as of 16:09, 17 August 2025

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<!-- {{shortcut|H:AGRL|WP:AGRL}} -->

{{information page}}

{{for|more information about footnotes and reference lists|Help:Footnotes}}

{{shortcut|HELP:AGRL|WP:AGRL}} <!-- Note: Shortcuts "Wikipedia:AGRL" and "H:AGRL" also exist. They were edited to point to here, to keep all AGRL shortcuts together. -->

A page with {{tag|ref|o}} tags but no reference list markup used to display an error, except on talk and user pages. In recent versions of Wikipedia, the error no longer appears; instead an automatically generated reference list (AGRL) is displayed at the bottom of the page.

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==When is an AGRL displayed?==

An AGRL is displayed whenever a page contains "reference markup" but no "reference list markup".

As shown in the following table, "reference markup" includes {{tag|ref}} tags and templates containing information meant to be displayed in a reference list (footnote section) near the bottom of the page.<br>"Reference list markup" is either a {{tag|references|single}} tag or a {{tl|reflist}} template, both of which indicate the position on the page where the reference list should be displayed.

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==What to do if an AGRL is displayed==

In most cases, it is sufficient to add reference list markup such as the following. This will display a header and the reference list at the position where it should appear.

<blockquote style="padding:1em; border:1px solid; width:10em;">

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">

<nowiki>==References==</nowiki><br>

==References==

<nowiki>{{reflist}}</nowiki>

{{reflist}}

</blockquote>

</syntaxhighlight>

On talk pages, the {{tl|reflist-talk}} template can be used to add a reference list to a specific discussion.

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The template should be added at the end of the section that contains the reference markup which is causing the AGRL to be displayed. The reference list will be displayed within a bordered box.

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">

<blockquote style="padding:1em; border:1px solid; width:10em;">

<nowiki>==Section 1==</nowiki><br>

.<br>

<nowiki>{{reflist-talk}}</nowiki>

.<br>

.<br>

==Section 2==

<nowiki>{{reflist-talk}}</nowiki>

</syntaxhighlight>

<nowiki>==Section 2==</nowiki><br>

.<br>

.<br>

</blockquote>

==Bugs==

AGRLs were introduced on Wikipedia with the deployment of MediaWiki 1.24wmf12 on July 10, 2014. Since then, the following bugs have been identified. They are a further reason why proper reference list markup should always be included.

* No tracking category is added. {{bugphab|6770069700}}

* {{tag|ref|o}} tags that include groups will still show an error if the reference list markup is missing. {{bugphab|6784769847}}

* Markup before the AGRL can cause it to be displayed as an unordered list with bullets instead of numbers. {{bugphab|6829370293}}

* There is no ability to detect the namespace, unlike the older behavior. {{bugphab|6832470324}}

* If a closing {{tag|ref|c}} tag is missing before properly included reference list markup then the reference list markup is exposed. {{bugphab|1571217712}}

* Articles that are exported to wikis with older software will not show the AGRL.

* If a closing {{tag|ref|c}} tag is missing before properly included reference list markup then the reference list markup is exposed. {{bug|15712}}

==See also==

*[[User:GreenC bot/Job 8|Reftalk]], a bot that adds {{tlx|reflist-talk}} to candidate talk page sections

[[Category:Wikipedia citation administration]]