Template talk:Efn/Archive 1

Archive 1

Upper case?

Would it be possible to specify upper case for the notations? • Astynax ^talk 19:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

You can use <ref group=upper-alpha>— see WP:CITELABEL for other styles. This template is meant for explanatory notes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd like this functionality too, or I will continue to avoid this template. ;-) Lower-alpha just doesn't look good in the text. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Upper-alpha, again

Why is there no functionality built in for upper-alpha? This should be exceedingly trivial. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:16, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

It is not difficult, but I wouldn't call it "exceedingly trivial", see {{efn/sandbox}}. Forcing others to always use upper-alpha is not a good way to suggest a change. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't have that working yet, and it will be a bit before I can get back to this. This template was designed to be minimally intrusive inline, so adding more parameters seems counter productive. I am considering creating a core for this template, and then a new template (efn_ua?) that would in turn use that core. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

And there you go. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Minimally intrusive is good, but the current #tag:ref format isn't exactly ideal either, hence my request here. There's no hurry. Also I apologize for coming off as abrasive; being up all night thanks to a term paper doesn't do wonders for my posts here, apparently. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Redrose64 fixed my goof, so this works. The question is: do you want to use{{efn|group=upper-alpha|explanatory note}}/{{notelist|group=upper-alpha}} or something like {{efn-ua|explanatory note}}/{{tlx|notelist-ua}}? BTW, you can use {{refn}} instead of #tag:ref.--— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:38, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

If it were up to me, I'd pick the {{efn|group=upper-alpha|explanatory note}}/{{notelist|group=upper-alpha}} form, because this avoids the bother of creating and maintaining five pairs of wrapper templates. It would not be possible to set up five pairs of redirects (instead of wrappers), because the core would have no way of knowing which redirect (if any) had been used, so wouldn't know which style to use. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't use redirects, I would use a core meta-template as I did with {{sfn}} and the related templates. And I would not create other efn templates unless someone has a use and requests them. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

If we're looking to avoid excessive intrusions, and creating a core template isn't too much trouble, I'd think {efn-ua} would be best... but that's just me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

{{efn-ua}} and {{notelist-ua}} are now live:

Markup	Renders as
Some information.<ref name=Smith2009>{{cite book|last=Smith|year=2009|title=Smith's book}}</ref> More information.{{efn-ua|A clarification.<ref name=Smith2009/>}} ==Notes== {{notelist-ua}} ==References== {{reflist|close=1}}	Some information. More information. Notes References

{{Efn}} and {{notelist}} have been updated and used as the core templates. I'm not going to create other variants until requested, although {{efn}} does support group styling now. I will update documentation soon. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Thanks so much, Ed. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:29, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, there's one issue. As you can see here, the template breaks in a certain circumstance, although I can't figure out what it is. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 03:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I fixed your sample. The URLs include =, so you have to use {{efn|1=note}}. --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Ach, that was a simple fix—sorry about that. Thanks again! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 12:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Seems to be working fine. I'm updating my articles to use it. Thanks! • Astynax ^talk 06:51, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

This template goes crazy when things get long

This happens when using refs=

Take for instance, this article Chinese room makes use of the template {{notelist|refs={{efn|name="xxxxx"}}}} without problems. But when you use this for more than two {{efn|name="xxxxx"}}, the thing simply breaks down. Below is an examples.

Simple usage. Only one {{efn|name="xxxxx"}}. Even two won't be a problem. All is good.

Markup	Renders as
Bad boy{{efn-ua|name=BBA}} ==Notes== {{notelist-ua|refs= {{efn-ua|name="BBA" | B is cooler.{{sfn|King|2013|p=10}} But A is more badass.{{sfn|Zeus|2013|p=10}} }} }} ==Citations== {{reflist|close=1}} ==References== * {{cite book | last = King | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }} * {{cite book | last = Zeus | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }}	Bad boy Notes Citations References King, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Zeus, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

An elaborate usage. It's no different from the simple one above, except that it is longer. Two main problems can be immediately noticed:

• The first few backlinks in the notes subsection are crazy. There are two backlinks when there should only be one. Of course the second backlink is dead.
• The citation error. (It doesn't show on here may be because this is a talkpage). Copy the markp below into a sandox or an article and save or preview and you will see the citation errors appear. It doesn't happen when there are two or less {{efn}} in the notes

Markup	Renders as
Bad boy.{{efn-ua|name=BBA}} Good boys.{{efn-ua|name=AA}} The earth is flat.{{efn-ua|name=BA}} The sun is red.{{efn-ua|name=CA}} The moon is white.{{efn-ua|name=DA}} The sea is black.{{efn-ua|name=BAC}} The sky is green.{{efn-ua|name=BCC}} Fire will burn.{{efn-ua|name=CBA}} Water will flow.{{efn-ua|name=CCA}} Ice will cool.{{efn-ua|name=BCA}} ===Notes=== {{notelist-ua|refs= {{efn-ua|name="BBA" | B is cooler than C.{{sfn|King|2013|p=10}} }} {{efn-ua|name="AA" | B is cooler than A.{{sfn|Lord|2013|p=10}} }} {{efn-ua|name="BA" | B is cooler{{sfn|Zeus|2013|p=10}} than B.{{sfn|Lord|2013|p=10}} }} {{efn-ua|name="CA" | B is cooler than G.{{sfn|King|2013|p=10}} }} {{efn-ua|name="DA" | B is cooler than GGH.{{sfn|Pope|2013|p=10}} }} {{efn-ua|name="BAC" | B is cooler{{sfn|Lord|2013|p=10}} than YUX }} {{efn-ua|name="BCC" | B is cooler than HHT }} {{efn-ua|name="CBA" | B is cooler than N }} {{efn-ua|name="CCA" | B is cooler{{sfn|Zeus|2013|p=10}} than GX }} {{efn-ua|name="BCA" | B is cooler than XD }} }} === Citations === {{reflist|close=1}} === References === * {{cite book | last = King | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }} * {{cite book | last = Zeus | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }} * {{cite book | last = Pope | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }} * {{cite book | last = Lord | first = Papa | title = This is a test | publisher = EyeTruth | year = 2013 | ref = harv }}	Bad boy. Good boys. The earth is flat. The sun is red. The moon is white. The sea is black. The sky is green. Fire will burn. Water will flow. Ice will cool. Notes Citations References King, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Zeus, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Pope, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) Lord, Papa (2013). This is a test. EyeTruth. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

EyeTruth (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

T22707. You can't use a nested reference more than once in LDR. I need to update the doc and help pages. --  Gadget850 ^talk 22:22, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Reusing a note

Is it possible to use this template to reuse the same note on several items, as would normally be done with "refname"? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, give them the same value for the |name= parameter, like this.

These all have the same name, but the text differs and only the text of the first is shown, so there's no need to put text in any apart from the first. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

OK, that seems to do the trick. The only downside is that it is now using two sets of lower-case letters; a. ^^abc, b. ^^ab, c. ^^abcd, etc. Is there any way to set it so that the notes in the text are still lowercase (which can't be changed in this template anyway), and the links back from the notelist are instead numbers or uppercase? ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 17:43, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

You can't change the backlink labels per reference. There is only one set of backlinks and they are all lower case. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. It will still work, but it would be nice to have the backlinks differ in style. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 04:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

That will require a change to the Cite software extension. If you want to pursue this, file a bur report. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:11, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Don't see why it should. All we need do is add a parameter to both {{efn}} and {{notelist}}, to allow a group name of lower-roman etc. to override lower-alpha, see Help:Cite link labels. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:04, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I wrote Help:Cite link labels . If I understand correctly, he wants something like:

a. ^ ^{A B}

Where a is the cite link and A and B are the backlinks. The backlink labels are defined in MediaWiki:Cite references link many format backlink labels are are lower alpha only. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:22, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. The backlinks are locked at lower-alpha because the style for refs is Arabic numeral by default. Since we can change the ref style, it would be nice to change the backlink style to match. Stylistically, IMO, using this template as-is is still better than having upper-alpha (or Greek or whatever) notes, lower-alpha just looks a lot better in the text. Bug filed at bugzilla:37377. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 18:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The template documentation examples should show how to do this. Currently, there is an example of how to add a name parameter, but not how to reference it in another location. Only by looking on this Talk page was I able to find that information. —BarrelProof (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

group being overloaded?

efn just saved my bacon, but is there something odd about the group parameter as used in this template? I used group=N, as I would using normal REF tags, but it had an unexpected outcome. This seems to be interpreted as "lower-alpha", which seems wrong by any measure, and it's not clear why an upper-case N would be interpreted that way. Can someone explain this to me? Check out AI Mk. IV radar. Maury Markowitz (talk) 13:47, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

@Maury Markowitz: There are only six valid values for |group= - five of these are a selection of those that are valid for the list-style-type: CSS property, and have the same meanings; the sixth is note which is like list-style-type:decimal; but prefixed with the word "note". If an invalid value like N is provided, the default value lower-alpha is used. Unless you need a particular style like Roman numerals or Greek letters, it's usually best to omit this parameter. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:20, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

But am I correct in thinking this is very different than the same-named parameter in a normal ref tag? Here group= a style class, there group= a group name. This seems unnecessarily confusing to me, is there any reason this tag is not called "style" or "marker-type" or something similar? Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not a style class, it's a property value; but it's also a groupname. You can have more than one different group in the same page:

Markup	Renders as
Text.{{efn|First note of lettered group}} Text.{{efn|group=lower-roman|First note with Roman numeral}} Text.{{efn|group=lower-roman|Second note with Roman numeral}} Text.{{efn|Second note of lettered group}} {{notelist}} {{notelist|group=lower-roman}}	Text. Text. Text. Text.

The <ref>...</ref> element also accepts special groupnames like group=lower-alpha, and since the {{efn}} template works by utilising that feature, it's natural for the parameter to have the same name. If you were to use <ref group=lower-alpha>...</ref> together with {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}, and don't include refs inside the note, the result would be identical:

Markup	Renders as
Text.<ref group=lower-alpha>Note</ref> {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}	Text.
Text.{{efn|Note}} {{notelist}}	Text.

They only differ when you put a ref inside the note - <ref group=lower-alpha>Note.<ref>Ref</ref></ref> doesn't work, but {{efn|Note.<ref>Ref</ref>}} does. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:18, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Default value

I was in the middle of a copy edit to Wotton House when between show changes the {{notelist}} stopped working. At first of course I thought it was something I had done (like missing off an </ref>). But after I could not trace it to my edit, I checked {{notelist}} no change there. I then rechecked my work before checking {{efn}} and found that user:Simon Villeneuve had changed the default value from "lower-alpha" to "note" I have now[reverted the change and the Wotton House article now displays as expected. Simon Villeneuve please test such changes first and then check on this page and advertise it on WT:CITE to see if such a change is wanted. -- PBS (talk) 13:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I just read your message on my talk page. No worries. -- PBS (talk) 13:22, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Problem with font size

When you use a subscript or superscript (including a ref) the output text is smaller than WP:FONTSIZE minima. What to do? -- Unbuttered parsnip (talk) mytime= Sun 21:36, wikitime= 13:36, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Some text.

In the above, I measure the font sizes as follows:- normal text (such as the words "Some text"): 12.7px; note text (such as the words "A note"): 11.4333px (i.e. 90% of 12.7px); normal marker : 9.9px (i.e. 78% of 12.7px); marker within note 9.48333px (i.e. 83% of 11.4333px or 95.8% of 9.9px). The font size is not set in this template, but in the Cite.php extension - that's the code that handles <ref>...</ref> and <references /> --Redrose64 (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Problem with syntax

The template displayed repeated errors until I narrowed down the problem - it doesn't seem to like the "=" sign when on its own, and it doesn't seem to like urls. See this diff which solved the problem. Oncenawhile (talk) 09:31, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

@Oncenawhile: You didn't need to make those changes. The presence of an equals sign causes the MediaWiki template parser to treat it as a named parameter, and not as the first positional (numbered) parameter. All that you needed to do was to alter {{efn-lr|According to the Jewish Encyclopedia ... to {{efn-lr|1=According to the Jewish Encyclopedia ... - explicitly numbering the parameter forces it to be interpreted as the first numbered parameter. This is not a problem with {{efn}}, but a known feature of the Wiki template parser - that is, the problem can occur with the positional parameters of any template, see Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds, first bullet. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:20, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

{{Efn|name=foo}} inconsistent with <ref name=foo />

If I use <ref name=foo /> and move the cursor over the link, I get the contents of the footnote in a popup. Howver, if I use {{Efn|name=foo}} then I get the URL instead of the actual footnote. This discrepancy should be documented or fixed.

Is <ref group=lower-alpha name=foo /> a legitimate bypass for this problem? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 22:53, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

@Chatul: Please give an example page where this is happening. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:10, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

In User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count key data/notes#Proposed table, column 2314, footnote (a), the popup has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Chatul/Sandbox/Count_key_data/notes#cite_note-35 instead of Including 2312, 2313, 2318 and 2319; the markup is {{efn|Including 2312, 2313, 2318 and 2319}}. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 19:45, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not a problem with {{efn}} but something more fundamental - even after clearing off all of the cite errors, none of the refs are displaying a Reference Tooltip. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:57, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

What does "efn" stand for?

What does "efn" stand for? Just curious, but I couldn't find it in the template documentation. Zeniff (talk) 21:41, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

@ZeniffMartineau: explanatory footnote. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:46, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you:) Silly of me to miss it:P Zeniff (talk) 22:35, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

Error messages because refs don't appear outside notes in a notelist

I recently converted Help:IPA for Dutch from {{ref}} to {{efn}}, and it generated a lot of error messages. See here for the diff. They all have to do with <ref></ref> refs only being inside notes in {{notelist}}. Apparently whatever code generates the errors requires refs to appear in text outside of a reflist. There is a workaround (move the notes into the text, to one of the instances where the footnotes appear), but it's kind of silly that the workaround is necessary. Not sure if this is the right place to post this. — Eru·tuon 19:42, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

From what I can gather, you tried to apply WP:LDR rules to {{efn}}. I really don't think that it works like that. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I think it does. An example of list-defined references is given in the documentation under the caption "With named references, the references are defined in the notelist". — Eru·tuon 21:44, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Differentiability of references

I like this template and the ease with which I can use it to create footnotes, but after giving it some thought, I think from the point of view of the average viewer (non-editor), it may just look like another reference to be ignored/filtered out. Perhaps there is a way to make the difference more obvious? Dustin (talk) 17:18, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Error, 12:25, 27 October 2016

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)

 – Namoroka (talk) 08:02, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Error, 16:02, 3 June 2017

Is there a specific module that this template uses? Because on the Central Kurdish Wikipedia, when we use it, it appears as [١ lower-alpha], a number and a writing instead of the alphabet. How can I fix this issue?—‎Lost Whispers _talk 16:02, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: No modules are involved. Make sure that the Central Kurdish equivalents of all of the following are up to date: Template:Efn; Template:Notelist; Template:Reflist. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: we didn't have the Refn template, now that I created that, it only writes [١ note] (take a look), I made sure that those three templates are all up to date, but still doesn't work. When I write group=lower-alpha for example, it just gives [١ lower-alpha] Instead of the alphabets. It refused to display anything other than "note." Maybe there's a specific template that needs to be created?—‎Lost Whispers _talk 00:47, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: Did you see this page (linked in a box at the top of the documentation page) on how to copy this template and its companions across wikis? It is apparently a complicated process. — Eru·tuon 01:13, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: oh! Nope, I didn't notice that, but it appears that those MediaWiki pages here don't exist on our Wikipedia. But I guess normal users can't create MediaWiki pages, or is it done on another wiki project outside Wikipedia? Should I notify an administrator?—‎Lost Whispers _talk 01:46, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: Yeah, you'll have to ask an administrator to create those pages. — Eru·tuon 04:47, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: thank you so much!—‎Lost Whispers _talk 08:26, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: Template:Refn should have nothing to do with your problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:44, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: you're right, after taking a second look they aren't related, when I updated this template after you advised me that's when the change happened I guess. But I notified an administrator, it should be fine after they create those MediaWiki pages, right? (I'm not so familiar with these complicated templates honestly)—‎Lost Whispers _talk 10:32, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Is there a way to determine footnote order apart from the order they appear on the page?

We've been having an ongoing problem with some of the articles on individual parliaments for a while now. Some editors really like the function of this template, which is being used to explain changes in membership - e.g. where a member of parliament resigns. However, because the template orders footnotes according to the other on which they appear on the page, this means that the notes sections explaining these changes - instead of appearing chronologically - are completely scrambled and incoherent. (See, for an example, Members of the Australian Senate, 2016–2019 - the Notes section there was chronological before this template was applied.) Is there a way we can fix this and reinstate ordering the footnotes chronologically? The Drover's Wife (talk) 01:28, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

The order that notes are listed in a {{notelist}} is, like the refs in a {{reflist}}, entirely governed by the order in which they are first used in the wikitext of the page. This is part of the cite.php feature, which is nowadays built into the Mediawiki software itself, so the order cannot be changed. If you are intent on using custom ordering, there are a number of deprecated and obsolete methods: see Wikipedia:Footnote1, Wikipedia:Footnote2, Wikipedia:Footnote3; but do not be surprised if those get reverted out again. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:29, 3 February 2018 (UTC)

name= parameter not working as documented

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Template talk:Notelist#The name= parameter is not working as documented
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:42, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Error, 05:32, 9 December 2017

So

This code	produces	and	produces
Example text.{{efn| {| |- |Example table |- |} }} {{noteslist}}	Example text.	Example text.{{efn| <br> <br /> {| |- |Example table |- |} <br /> <br /> }} {{noteslist}}	Example text.

what's the trick for formatting or templating a table into existence in these footnotes? — LlywelynII 05:32, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

This is not a problem with {{efn}}. You cannot pass tables through any parameter of any template. In brief: each of the pipes is taken as if it were a parameter separator. It's exactly the same issue that is causing the breakage at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia style and naming (SMcCandlish please note). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:16, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64 and LlywelynII: I haven't had enough coffee. What's the problem I need to fix or be aware of at the RfC page?

Anyway, if you want to pass a (hopefully small!) table as a template parameter, you can do this by escaping all the table's | symbols with {{!}}. Here's a demo, using {{block indent}} and {{!}}:

Header1	Header 2
Datum 1A	Datum 2A
Datum 1B	Datum 2B

The |1= is required. So is the <nowiki /> after it. (For details, see: Template:Block indent/doc#Technical issues with block templates.) The = in class="wikitable" does not have to be escaped with {{=}} because of the use of |1=; however, escaping it is safe to do, as I did in that example.

A consequence of this {{!}} trick is that the syntax highlighting [if you have that feature enabled] of the wiki code gets boogered as soon as the embedded table starts, because {| becomes {{{!}}, and the syntax highlighter interprets the {{{ as opening a variable like {{{1}}}, not as a lone { followed by a template call. People who deal with safesubst code and other kludges are already familiar with this problem. If it makes your editing hard, comment out the offending code temporarily so you can see what you're doing, then re-enable it before preview-and-save.

Block-template-embedded tables can also just be done with far less horrifying HTML markup:

Header 1	Header 2
Datum 1B	Datum 1B
Datum 2A	Datum 2B

This requires either |1= (the safer option) or the manual escaping of = in things like class="wikitable". A <nowiki /> is not required (but will be harmless); <table> does not have a special relationship with the beginning of a newline the way {| does.

PS: I have not tested what blechery may result if you attempt to apply such tricks to the content of non-block, inline-element templates. I'm skeptical that even MediaWiki's smarts will result in valid markup at the end; you'll likely have a table (a block element) nested illegally inside an inline element like <span>, <i>, or whatever the wrapping template is doing, with unpredictable browser rendering results.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:37, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

PS: I did some checking, and the ultimate output of this is to wrap the citation info in a <span>...</span>, so including a table inside that is invalid markup. We should probably actually have the underlying code use a |div= with a class, since people also put short lists, paragraph breaks, and other things inside ref citations, and these are block elements that cannot validly be inside a span. Since this <ref>...</ref> code is in MediaWiki itself, not in local Lua modules, this will probably have to be a Phabricator ticket. It also means it will probably not be fixed any time soon.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

The ticket has been open since 2014: T49544. As usual, fixing it is meeting with resistance from the "it looks okay in my browser" crowd. Frankly, people who have that attitude need to be excluded from any decision-making when it comes to standards compliance, but I don't know what the MediaWiki and Phabricator "politics" are, so I don't know why they're presently allowed to blockage obvious fixes for years. Some basic problems, like MW permitting rampant abuse of the <dd> element for indentation and <dt> for boldfacing, outside the context of a <dl>...</dl>, have gone unresolved for over a decade (and despite it being fixable with some comparatively simple regexp work to determine if [\r\n]: or [\r\n]; is used in absence of preceding markup that indicates a description list, and if not replacing the output with an CSS-indented div. [sigh]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  04:35, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Re "What's the problem I need to fix or be aware of at the RfC page?", the breakage at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia style and naming is in the line

How should articles on railway lines in Russia be titled?: {

it stops abruptly after that opening brace. If you open that version for editing, there is much more to the RfC entry: a table, and then your "Use option A per WP:CONSISTENCY, MOS:DASH, MOS:CAPS, and WP:USEENGLISH." comment. The next version of the same RfC listing omits the table, and shows that signature/timestamp placement is critical.

Please give examples of a <dd> or <dt> outside the context of a <dl>...</dl>. Whenever I look at the HTML source of a discussion page (such as this one), <dd> tags always occur inside <dl>...</dl> elements, they are never isolated. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:40, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

That's because MW is creating bogus "list" around that markup. I'm talking about what's in the source, not what's in the rendered output.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:00, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

And I'm talking about the rendered output. There is a bare unclosed opening brace which is sloppy. There is no visible signature, which is debatable; but the absence of a timestamp also appears sloppy. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:07, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: Restart. I was clarifying this, since there are two (now three) different subjects under discussion, but I got hit by an edit conflict.

tables: I see what you mean at the RfC index page. Not much to do about that, other than to have the bot doing it stop putting stuff inside a {{rfcquote}} template, and just copy it as-is. There's no particular necessity to template it that way, and it's going to break on all kinds of markup, not just tables in RfCs (which are quite common).

RfCs: There is no requirement that they be signed, and we sometimes do not sign them on purpose, if doing so might prejudice the responses or outcomes, or when the RfC is being listed procedurally to reflect someone else's concerns rather than those of the poster. A timestamp is probably a good idea, though. I don't think either would have helped here, because my sig or timestamp would have been after the table.

dd: That's because MW is creating bogus "lists" around that markup. I'm talking about what's in the source, not what's in the rendered output. We should not have lists being created for content this is not a list; MW should recognize when someone is using : by itself for just an indentation, or ; by itself for a bold pseudo-heading, and replace it with a styled span, not list markup. There's been an open ticket to fix this for over 10 years, and they're still F'ing around about it, pretending it doesn't matter. It does matter; WP:VPPOL appears poised to actually ban attempts to use legitimate and accessible markup in articles, because a handful of "don't know WTF I'm talking about" lazy editors are convinced that using : for indentation is "a standard" no matter what the result is. It's the most F'ed up thing I have ever seen on Wikipedia in 12+ years. I can barely believe my eyes. It's about like saying "we should still be trying to treat all ailments with leeches, bloodletting, and mercury, because doctors did that for centuries." But that's as much as I'll rant about it here.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  12:21, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64: PS: I checked Template:Rfcquote, and it is not using span or other inline text markup, but a table cell, so block elements being stuffed into it should be fine (aside from the {{!}} problem with nested tables). Whatever bot is taking the RfC material and putting it into this template maybe needs a tweak to do so with or without some particular wrapping markup (e.g., without a span or other inline wrapper, and with an explicit leading newline so markup that would fail when not the first char. on the line will not fail).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:58, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

It's Legobot (talk · contribs), and as I have mentioned several times, Legoktm (talk · contribs) is unwilling to make amendments to the bot code. The action of Legobot when building the RfC listings is simple: it makes a heading based on the discussion page name and the |rfcid= parameter of the {{rfc}} template, copies all text and markup from the {{rfc}} template (exclusive) to the next timestamp (inclusive) and puts that inside the |text= parameter of an {{rfcquote}} template. It doesn't alter that content in any way. I can't really blame it: it would need to distinguish a pipe in a table (which would need to be converted) from a pipe in a wikilink or preceding a template parameter (both of which must be left alone). --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@Redrose64 and Legoktm: If the bot operator will not fix the bot, but it is a fix that should be made, then the bot needs to be killed and replaced with another one by a responsive maintainer. It's something to raise at WP:BAG, by someone who cares enough to deal with the drama (which isn't me). And I have no experience of interacting with Legoktm about Legobot, so I'm not in a position to endorse the view that Legoktm is, in fact, a non-responsive bot operator. But we have a clear procedure to follow in the case of one. If this matter isn't something a bot should account for, then "too bad, so sad". People are going to continue using tables in RfCs, and the fix will be to insert a timestamp before the table to give the bot something to chew on before it hits the table. We're already refactoring RfCs on a regular basis to have an early timestamp and bypass piles of background material before the RfC-opener's sig (I've had that done to two of my own RfCs in the last month or so, and did it to another myself), and no one cares, so in the end this all seems like a non-issue to me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:58, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, thank you both for that explanation and those kludges. It turns out that the block indent is not needed. Just using the plain HTML tags <table>, <th>, <tr>, <td> instead of our usual piping syntax is enough to fix the problem. Sorry about whatever this other issue is at MW but, yeah, it won't get fixed here. Good luck, though.

If you have time, I'm now curious what "blechery" was supposed to mean. You linked to Wiktionary but there's no definition there, and the closest thing I can work out is an old term for "bleaching", which doesn't seem to fit. — LlywelynII 21:49, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

@LlywelynII: Derp. The wikt:blecherous article was missing. Fixed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  07:58, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Issues with displaying lower-alpha

Hello. I'm trying to implement this template (and the {{notelist}} template) on my local wikipedia, but it keeps showing ^{[lower-alpha]} instead of ^[a]. What am I missing here? Thanks. — Gaute ^{chat - email - sign} 03:10, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Gautehuus: Make sure that {{reflist}} is up to date as well. In particular, it needs the code

list-style-type: {{{liststyle|{{#switch: {{{group|}}}
    | upper-alpha
    | upper-roman
    | lower-alpha
    | lower-greek
    | lower-roman = {{{group}}}
    | #default = decimal}}}}};

in order to set the styling. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

@Redrose64:It seemed to work after I added the {{MediaWiki:Cite link label group-lower-alpha}} (and the rest of those) to our wiki, but I've added the above code to the {{reflist}} template as well. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but it seems to be working somewhat properly. Thank you, I appreciate your time. Regards, — Gaute ^{chat - email - sign} 16:08, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Man, I was stuggling with this, but thanks, @Gautehuus: and @Redrose64:. It seems adding {{MediaWiki:Cite link label group-lower-alpha}} did the trick, though that is the last thing I did. —Grlucas (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Anyone know what I did wrong?

I have never seen this before. There are 34 "efn-ua" style footnotes in User:Lingzhi2/sandbox (including two in the first paragraph, after "socialist" and "War") , but only about 5 or 6 display in the notes section. Even stranger, there are no superscripted, square-bracketed links that looks like^[A] in the body text. Anyone know what I did wrong? Tks ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 08:14, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Lingzhi2: See this. A literal equals sign (=) inside template parameters must be escaped somehow, typically by using {{=}}. --Xover (talk) 12:38, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 14:16, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Errors when note text include equals sign

This should at least be mentioned in the documentation, but when the note text includes an equals sign (=), the template fails. I assume this is because the equals sign is confused with the text preceding the equals sign being the name of a parameter. —Doug Bell 04:28, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Doug Bell:, yes, this is a feature of the MediaWiki template parser, and is not peculiar to {{efn}} - nor can we fix it bey altering the template. You need to explicitly number the parameter, as in |1=a=b --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:36, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It would still be nice to have some kind of warning about this, as it's in no way obvious. I'm not exactly a newb and it still blindsided me when I tried using my own tags having just copied the outline from others that were already in the code, and the mainpage doesn't say anything about it, or how to work around it - only this talk page (Or more precisely: there's a page concerning wikitext workarounds that tells you about it ... I only found that page via this one, IE this talkpage, rather than the site search or regular help structure). Not exactly putting helpful hints where most people are going to look for them. 146.199.60.87 (talk) 00:23, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Please provide examples - links to pages where you are having difficulty, or (better still) diffs of the edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:01, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

External link can't be used directly

I couldn't get an external link to work with an efn as a square bracket link , but could with a template link.

My guess is that that it doesn't like the non-escaped question mark (?). Can this be fixed? If not, then added to the Issues section? Thanks, ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 08:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Hydronium Hydroxide: It's not that, it's the equals sign: and this is normal behaviour for all Wikipedia templates that use positional parameters. You need to explicitly number the parameter:

It's covered by Help:Template#Usage hints and workarounds, first bullet. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 16:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 02:27, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Likewise. I was having a lot of trouble like this and it took half an hour of experimentation to find out what was causing it. My only recourse then was to use an HTML &#61; tag to display a non-coding = sign. Not that I'm not having other issues, but they can go in a separate section without any pollution from that now. 146.199.60.87 (talk) 00:19, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Please provide examples - links to pages where you are having difficulty, or (better still) diffs of the edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:02, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

 Not a bug

What other curly-bracket tags can be included in efns, and why?

Something I ran into trouble with when trying to put scientific data figures into a footnote earlier ... it seems like {{efn}} really doesn't like having, e.g. {{val}} tags included in it. For example you can't easily produce a 3.21±0.04 by writing {{val|3.21|0.04}} inside the footnote - it just throws various types of errors, e.g. "empty ref" or other big red cite errors, or glitchy appearances like only a single number appearing and nothing else. Instead you have to do something much messier, more difficult, and more error prone like 3.21&thinsp;&plusmn;&thinsp;0.04 (to give 3.21 ± 0.04), and something like 3.21+0.08
−0.44 km (using {{val|3.21|0.08|0.44|u=km}} is right out; the best you can do is something decidedly suboptimal like 3.21^+0.08_-0.44 km (using the altogether unwieldy 3.21^+0.08_-0.44 km).

Is there any reason for this? Because I can't really see one. Other constructs like {{nowrap}} or {{=}} operate just fine within the same efn tag, so it's certainly not the case that you can't nest different types of curly-bracket tag.

Then again this'll probably prove to be a transitory thing like the problem I was having with {{small}} tags up until the point where I tried to make a bug report about it, whereupon it evaporated at the point of trying to demonstrate it...

Is it something to do with the pipes? If so, is there any way to escape them so that it'll work for one tag but not the other? I figured the additional set of double opening curly brackets would serve as a sign to the efn tag parsing that it can ignore any and all special characters within the tag until it meets a matching set of closing ones at the same nest level, but maybe not...? 146.199.60.87 (talk) 00:32, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Please provide examples - links to pages where you are having difficulty, or (better still) diffs of the edits. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:02, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

No URL support anymore? (cite error)

{{efn|Hello http://example.org/}} ← produces: . --Handroid7 (talk) 16:22, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh wait, it works here somehow. --Handroid7 (talk) 16:23, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Nevermind. “{{efn|1=” solved it. ––Handroid7 (talk) 16:24, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Notes

trouble with references inside efns

I tried to update the note markup here. That wikitext works fine in my sandbox, but errors in the article space. Any ideas? -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:55, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

@JHunterJ: Your sandbox shows exactly the same problems, but they're hidden by default - to make them visible, use the CSS rule given at H:SHOWCITEERROR. But to cut a long story short: don't attempt to combine {{efn}} with WP:LDR. It never has worked properly, and there are several discussions on the matter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:50, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there a better way to handle the notes and LDR in Kiliaen van Rensselaer (merchant)? Its approach seemed clunky. -- JHunterJ (talk) 21:12, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Just put the {{efn}}s inline with the text that they relate to, i.e.

| birth_date = 1586{{efn|1=The year of birth is at odds in sources. Some sources state c. 1585 (such as the [https://web.archive.org/web/20090331102057/http://www.otal.umd.edu/~walt/gen/htmfile/3848.htm Gilbert Genealogy] and [http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/27080450/A-DUTCH-WHOS-WHO Encyclopædia Britannica]), though others say c. 1580 (such as the [https://books.google.com/books?id=0FIOAAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA37&ots=g66avGxr2F&dq=The%20Van%20Rensselaers%20in%20Holland%20and%20in%20America&pg=PA43 Van Laer], p. 43), and still some say c. 1595 (such as [https://archive.org/stream/vanrensselaerfam21spoo#page/6/mode/1up Spooner] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20091102223541/http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_1741500535/Van_Rensselaer_(family).html Encarta]).}}

Each note is unique, so there is no need to name any of them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Groups

This did not work as I expected; have I misunderstood, or simply done something wrong? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:03, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: {{efn}} only recognises six group names: note, upper-alpha, upper-roman, lower-alpha, lower-greek, lower-roman. Anything else defaults to lower-alpha. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:42, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Efn groups on Hungarian Wikipedia

Hi. I would like to know how to change the "lower-alpha" group from ^{[lower-alpha 1] [lower-alpha 2] [lower-alpha 3]} into ^{[a] [b] [c]}. I tried to do it on the Hungarian Wikipedia but after having searched for days, I haven't found anything. Here's the Efn template in Hungarian that shows the detail to fix. Let me know. -- Hypuxylun (talk) 01:50, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

H:CL. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:22, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I've already created the template Sablon:Cite_link_label_styles, but I think the MediaWiki links in Hungarian must also be created for that (MediaWiki:cite link label group-decimal, MediaWiki:cite link label group-lower-alpha, etc.). I've tried but I haven't had the chance to do it. -- Hypuxylun (talk) 01:25, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Continued sequencing

In the example below, both references read as ^[a], which I find confusing. There should be a way how to continue sequencing, e.g. first reference is ^[a], second one is ^[b]. Or at least there should be a parameter to overwrite autonumbering. Or, possibly is there a template that already does that? Wolfmartyn (talk) 18:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Markup	Renders as
Text.<ref group=lower-alpha>Note</ref> {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}}	Table and text 1
Table and text 2{{efn|Note 2}} {{notelist}}	Table and text 2

This is nothing to do with {{efn}} but is more closely connected to the <ref>...</ref> construct that underlies it. Moreover, it is a general characteristic of <references /> for which {{reflist}} and {{notelist}} are merely wrappers. The use of that tag outputs all references prior to that point and resets the counter. You would need to file a ticket at phab: asking for an enhancement to the cite.php extension. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Multiple notelists

I've been doing this to, for example, have separate families of notes generated in article infoboxes and in tables which are unpacked in notelists in or just below such items. This works, but I think it is undocumented and therefore might be not guaranteed to keep working. What brought to mind was thoughts about separate notelists in general to, for example, have notes generated in the body of an article which are unpacked in a notelist in an article endmatter section, but also have separate groups of notes within the body items as just described. As far as I know, this is unsupported unless the footnote numbering style for each group is different from the rest.

I'm hoping that is supported in a way that allows using the same numbering style in separate notelists and I've just missed seeing the documentation of it. In any case, I would appreciate comment. If the above is unclear, I can try to clarify it. Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:53, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Try groups.

One notelist above, another below.

It's all documented. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:21, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes but, as I said, was hoping that is supported in a way that allows using the same numbering style in separate notelists. However, from what I racall of a look at internals of cite.php some years ago, I'm guessing that I'm out of luck there. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:56, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Every time you use a notelist, a fresh sequence is started.

There is no limit tho the number you can have. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:01, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Problem with using span tags in efn template?

This discussion was started at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Edit causing ref errors. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:51, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

I did not see this listed under Issues in the documentation, or in this talk page, so I'm posting it here.

The following code: {{efn|Test <span style="color:#87d300;">foo</span>.}} should render a note that looks like this:

Test foo.

Instead, it renders like this:

(In case this problem gets fixed in the future, the rendering is "Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page without content in them (see the help page)."

The expanded wikicode looks like: <ref group="lower-alpha"></ref>

This question is motivated by errors caused unexpectedly when this edit was made.

Is there a problem with using span tags inside of Template:efn? If so, can we please document it? – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:00, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

The problem is the equals sign (=) in the span tag, which causes the the template to be parsed as being invoked with the parameter Test <span style with value "color:#87d300;">foo</span>.. {{efn|1=Test <span style="color:#87d300;">foo</span>.}} correctly renders as – Rummskartoffel 16:17, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

You're right. I just gave this advice to another editor about a different template. I had equals-sign blindness because it was in the span tag, and because it works fine if it's inside a wikilink: {{efn|Test [[foo|<span style="color:brown;">foo</span>]].}} → . Quirky. – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:31, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Notes