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Clarification

I wanted to get a little bit of clarification on the use of this template. Two questions: Am I better off using the </references> tag instead of the {{reflist}} template? If so, what are the circumstances that this template should be used? Thanks. --hmich176 01:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

@Hmich176: There is not much reason to use {{reflist}} over <references/>, after responsive columns are inevitably enabled by default. This is as a result of a number of changes over the years. What cannot be done without either use of {{reflist}} or some amount of "custom" (i.e. bad practice) HTML would be to change the list style. But, for most cases, when you want to change the list style you will be attempting to add notes, or some information other than pure references, for which you should probably use {{notelist}} and its family of templates anyway. --Izno (talk) 02:42, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

It's less typing. Even if you use the wiki markup shortcuts, it's one click instead of two. Kendall-K1 (talk) 02:45, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Once responsive columns are enabled, <references/> has an advantage for visual editor users, in that it responds dynamically to changes, whereas {{reflist}} does not. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:09, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

What you all have said was essentially what I thought, so thanks for your responses and clarifications. Have a great day! --hmich176 10:51, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

However, {{Reflist}} allows us to set custom CSS styles on the list of references. So, for example, the reflist template has its bottom margin set to match the margins on wikitext paragraphs, etc. whereas <references /> does not. These styles are controllable centrally from MediaWiki:Common.css and may be quite simply customised individually by editors in their own CSS (to cater for visual impairment, for example). In addition, editors may feel that the use of reflist to create list-defined references is more intuitive, or at least better documented. Since reflist embeds <references responsive>, I don't agree with Mike that there can be any difference in mobile view. My preference is always for reflist, YMMV. --RexxS (talk) 18:00, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify, Mike didn't say there was a difference in mobile view, but that there was a difference for VisualEditor. This is correct, as references are page contextual elements, and when used 'through' a template, then VE doesn't know when to update this when you are editing the page. This is a known behavior/limitation/bug of VE (it can't guess what is inside a template that depends on the state of the page). From a technical perspective, reflist should not exist, but unfortunately it does. But there is little use in switching from one form to the other (mostly because that will likely lead to pointless editwars). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:58, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Ah right, apologies, I misread. Well, if <references /> can do everything that {{Reflist}} can in terms of the styling, then I'm happy to switch to using it. --RexxS (talk) 21:43, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Any time I see <references/> instead of {{reflist}}, I think of the old Wikipedia. You know, back when we got that big, yellow strip as a talk page notification and didn't have WP:Ping. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:24, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

It was a

big orange strip

not yellow. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:02, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Yeah. Looked yellow to me mostly, though. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:54, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

More clarification

Ok, I am completely ignorant on these matters (Im a content creater in Israel Palestine matters), but I usually use {{reflist|25em}} on the articles I edit, as that gives an ok appearance of refs for my 13 inch Mac Air.

Today, admin :Number 57 started changing {{reflist|25em}} to {{reflist}} stating that "{{reflist}} has recently been upgraded to automatically switch to the most appropriate width so you no longer need to add the |em part to make columns."

And that this would probably be done by bot, soon.

But {{reflist}} only give one loooooong column for the refs for me. How do we solve this? Huldra (talk) 21:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I said I suspect a bot would be commissioned to do this at some point. I have no idea whether one will or not, but it wouldn't surprise me to see it done. Number 57 21:54, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Number 57: The |em parameter still works. I was doing similar "corrections" but was reminded that we should not be undoing specifically-set column widths arbitrarily (see discussion above, and my talk page). We should only be removing specifically deprecated or unsupported parameters, like |3 or |2. Thanks.— TAnthony^Talk 22:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough. I knew it still works but I assumed it was now unnecessary. Number 57 22:03, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@Huldra: Do the articles you're having trouble with have less than 10 citations? I'm surprised you're seeing such a drastic difference in column generation, since the default is 30em.— TAnthony^Talk 22:04, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

@TAnthony: No, most have between 10 and 20, but Bayt Jibrin has 85, which is definitely among the largest number of refs Huldra (talk) 22:11, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I suspect the problem here is that the size of the browser window on Huldra's 13 inch Mac Air is small enough that the default 30em width doesn't fit multiple columns, while 25em that Huldra had been using makes columns that are narrow enough to fit. Anomie⚔ 23:12, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect the same. And, for medical reasons (please don't make me elaborate) I cannot use a full scale screen. (I can email you the reason, if you really need to know.) Huldra (talk) 23:46, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

What are the chances we could turn this into a user pref? 30em is reasonable for many users, but not all, and is somewhat arbitrary. Any number we pick is guaranteed to be wrong for at least one user. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:17, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Huldra: I have no need to know. @Kendall-K1: Seems unlikely to me. But it should be easy enough to override in your common.css, probably something like this will do it:

.mw-references-columns {
    -webkit-column-width: 25em;
    -moz-column-width: 25em;
    column-width: 25em;
}

HTH. Anomie⚔ 00:29, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Those of you who set a specific colwidth (or worse, image size) different from the default because it looks best on your screen remind me of this Dilbert comic: [1] Kendall-K1 (talk) 23:05, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

• Jeez Louise. The column-width parameter, if it's used, should be keyed to the size of the references themselves e.g. if there are many elaborate, long refs (or for textual footnotes) you might use |35em, but if you've got a lot of little refs (such as Smith (2015), p. 5) you might use |20em or 25em. The size of anyone's screen has nothing to do with it (as it obviously can't anyway). EEng 00:56, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree. I had the impression Huldra wanted something different from this, but maybe I misunderstood. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

The whole point of specifying a column width in ems is that it alters as the text size alters, so screen, viewport size, resolution and zoom have no effect on the average number of characters in a column. The reason why we give editors the ability to choose the minimum column width is precisely the reason EEng#s gives. --RexxS (talk) 10:11, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

"Reflist" is more usually "Citelist". If you're using it to list references, then I stick with 35em, based on the usability studies work for long lines (of any material) becoming hard to read. I expect them to wrap. If it's listing citations, to references that are in another list, then they can go much narrower - even though they probably won't even need to wrap in it. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:21, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Some comments:

1. I really don't understand why people think something like 35em should change to the default. A default is a fallback, not a specification of what something "should be". It certainly shouldn't be done with some forethought and discussion.
2. IF we would ever standardize more on widths that we currently do, it will be with presets like "narrow/normal/large". This has already been discussed and looked at, but it is not happening at this moment (specifically because I wanted to avoid these kinds of discussions that we seem to have right now).
3. Never adapt a size to fit your personal screen size, because doing something for yourself inside article content is selfish (you are more important than all the others reading the article?). Instead adapt your CSS to override something specifically for you, or bring it to the template's talk page and discuss how to make something adapt to different screensizes.
4. Similarly and opposed to that. If you think that 35 em or 15em means you will always get that, then you are equally misguided, as these settings are for Desktop only. Mobile, books, print, Apple dictionary, wikix and the dozens of other formats that render Wikipedia content, might (and often do) use different settings.

greetings —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 18:47, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

• A. Virtually all of the articles I edit have references of the short type: "Morris, 2004, p. xix", "Socin, 1879, p. 151"...just to mention a couple from Al-Dawayima. The full reference is then given in a Bibliography section at the end. Typically, an article has from 10 to 25 references.
• B. {{reflist|25em}} has worked well for this format...at least no-one has complained until now.
• C. I understand that I could change my common.css to the above, and always see it in a |25em format. Alas, that presuppose that I would be logged in, does it not?
• D. is there any fundamentally strong reason why {{reflist|25em}} cannot remain in these article? Huldra (talk) 20:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Huldra: If an article has mainly short references in the References section, then you are absolutely right to set {{reflist|25em}} as it will set a minimum column width large enough to prevent most references being wrapped, but narrow enough to avoid large blocks of white space. That is eminently sensible and will have the same effect for all readers (except logged-in users who have custom css), so you're improving the readability of the article for everyone, regardless of screen size, resolution, etc. That is one very good reason why {{reflist|25em}} should remain in the article (not to mention the effort that TheDJ and others have put into making that flexibility available). A similar argument applies to articles that have mainly very long references: setting {{reflist|35em}} (or perhaps more) would help to keep the long references more readable. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 20:42, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

I'll admit that I completely misunderstood what you were asking for. I thought you were saying you had some kind of medical condition that required narrower than normal columns. The one example I saw, Bayt Jibrin, is a mix of short and long citations, and could go either way. It sounds now like you're just asking why you can't use 25em for an article with short cites. I would say this is exactly why we allow you to change the col width, and you are doing it right. Kendall-K1 (talk) 20:47, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@Kendall-K1: LOL, no my medical condition just makes me dependent on a light little computer like Mac Air, I cannot use desk computers, at least not for long.Huldra (talk) 20:52, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

@RexxS: Absolutely, thanks. I will keep it like this then, at least for now,Huldra (talk) 20:51, 1 August 2017 (UTC)