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Multiple columns bug

The documentation claims that the multicolumn versions work in Safari 3. I use Safari 3.1.1, and they still don't render correctly. The documentation should be changed.

By the way, this bug is a real pain. Is it really true that they don't render correctly in any browser except Firefox and Mozilla? Any hope of a fix? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just realized you guys have already been discussing this for awhile. I agree they should be deprecated or fixed. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 01:19, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Notes list

See Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Discursive notes for an extension of the ref tag to add notes. Do we want a separate template like reflist to format the notes list, or do we want to add a switch to reflist? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Someone finally implemented this? Wow! I vote for adding a group parameter to {{reflist}} to most easily support whichever arbitrary grouping parameter people may want to use. This change would do it. Anomie⚔ 21:45, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I did some testing and it looks good to me. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 13:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Could really use some more input here... --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:07, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Since no one else seems to care, let's go for it. Someone please implement this change. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 11:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Need to update the documentation. WP is being cranky at the moment, so I will work on it in a bit. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 11:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
If discursive notes are separated out and meant to be read, then they should have the same font size as the rest of the text, and not be in a smaller font. Reflist for a list of discursive notes makes even less sense than it does for citations. Gimmetrow 22:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
While notes are one use of the groups extension, it can be used for most any purpose. For example, as labels within a table. The size and usage of notes should be determined by the style guide, not the template. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 02:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
So we'll have busybodies changing every group references to reflist, and this template will govern usage? Gimmetrow 03:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
And we'll have busybodies changing around citation templates, and changing settings for non-auto-formatting dates, and so on. What's your point? Anomie⚔ 13:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
That's exactly my point. Let's not add more stuff for people to flip flop. Before this feature gets in common use, we should determine one way to format discursive notes, and one way to format table notes. Gimmetrow 13:53, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Templates should never govern usage— there use should always be within the MOS. This is not the place for a discussion on notes formatting— it should be taken to Wikipedia talk:Footnotes. I am certain that there will be other creative uses of ref groups other than notes and labels. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 17:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
Your point is that instead of worrying about stuff people will actually fight over, you want to complain about this feature that will probably seldom be used? Wow. Anomie⚔ 22:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
And your point is that, while you apparently agree with me, you want to encourage people fighting and encourage templates governing usage? Is that a double wow? Gimmetrow 23:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

empty reflist

Rather than display nothing when there are not references in the article, could the reflist template display the Template:nofootnotes? This would serve as a visual reminder that the article needs to be improved with properly sourced references.--Rtphokie (talk) 11:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Is this really a problem? I can't recall ever seeing a references section with no references. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 11:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, {{unreferenced}} would be better, as that is usually the case rather than there being references with no in-line citations. For Gadget, yes, many times a reference section is added that has no reference as a reminder that they are needed :-P -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 18:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Thats what I was thinking. It would also catch the situations where references are removed but the reference section remains. Can we get this change made?--Rtphokie (talk) 16:38, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Hanging widows

Hi there. I was wondering if there was any way that the reflist template could automatically avoid hanging widows (where the last line of text from the first column appears at the top of the second column). It's just a little strange to have the reference split up like that. It's not an urgent matter, but just something I wanted to note. Thanks for all your hard work. Best, epicAdam (talk) 15:40, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Multiple template bug

This came up on a talk page, where {{Reflist}} appeared several times, and we couldn't figure out why no references were showing for the last one.
If you specify either the colwidth or the column count (i.e. {{Reflist|colwidth=30em}} or {{Reflist|2}} it works fine: it displays all the references that haven't already been displayed in the previous reflist, allowing separate notes sections for separate sections of the talk page, as here for example: [1]. However, if you just say {{Reflist}} with no parameters, then each instance of the template lists only the references that are in the wikitext before the first template; other references are not displayed.
Does anyone know where to find documentation for this part of the code? "{{#tag:references" or at least for the "#tag:" part? I just don't know where to look. It isn't on m:Help:ParserFunctions, for example.
I thought of a possible workaround: move this template to ReflistA, and make a new Reflist template that calls ReflistA with all the same parameters that were passed in, except that if no parameters are passed in, then it passes in a default, e.g. column count 1. I think that would work, but it's clunky. It would be better to find out how #tag:references works and see if it can be fixed. Thanks to anyone who can find any documentation on it.☺Coppertwig (talk) 17:57, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure reflist was ever intended to work that way. If you want multiple reference lists, then use the new groups parameter— see the doc. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:15, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the "{{#tag:references", as the same thing happens if I copy {{reflist}} into my sandbox and replace it with the standard <references/>, and then use the sandbox template in place of {{reflist}}. See Help:Magic words for documentation on {{#tag:}}, it's basically a way to get the parser to handle templates and template variables inside XML-style parser tags. Anomie⚔ 18:22, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Magic words— I knew I should have known that. Thanks. I suspect the use of columns resets the ref parser, but I don't think that is an intended feature and I would not rely on it. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:27, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
I note that even a bogus parameter (e.g. {{reflist|aksfbaksbfa=1}}) "fixes" the problem. Also, it's not "before the first template", it's that it repeats whatever was output for the first {{reflist}} with no parameters for any subsequent ones. Maybe the MediaWiki parser caches the output of template invocations without parameters, but doesn't cache template invocations with parameters? I also just tested the "ReflistA" idea, and it "fails" in the same way, so that solution won't work. Anomie⚔ 18:42, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
To clarify,

<ref>A</ref>{{reflist|2}}<ref>B</ref>{{reflist}}<ref>C</ref>{{reflist}}

displays references "A, B, B" and not "A, A, A". as Coppertwig stated. Anomie⚔ 18:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Ooh.
By the way, it also works (A,B,C) if you just put a pipe and no actual parameters: {{Reflist|}}.
It's not really necessary that it work; but when it behaves in a mysterious way, people waste time trying to figure out why the references aren't displaying. Now that I've put a note in the documentation maybe it's fine. Thanks, everybody. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:46, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Putting the pipe is passing an empty value for the first unnamed parameter, the same as {{reflist|1=}}. Anomie⚔ 19:53, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it might be working that way.☺ Coppertwig (talk) 23:05, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Very long lists

I was wondering if it is OK to add a hide/show button to very long lists of references? I'm working on an a list with 200 references and it is almost as long as the list. If it is OK, what is the preferred method of going about doing this? Thanks! SharkD (talk) 07:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

No. If you have the references hidden, then clicking on the in-article reference links doesn't work. It may also affect printing the article, I don't recall if anything ever came of the proposal a while back to make navboxes auto-show on print. Anomie⚔ 11:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I know this question has come up before. Is this documented somewhere? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 14:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Putting references in a scrollbox is forbidden at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Scrolling lists. Putting them inside a {{hide}} or something similar would have many of the same issues and additionally would break the in-article reference links, but I don't know that it is specifically addressed anywhere. Anomie⚔ 18:10, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
That was it. Hard to remember where stuff is sometimes. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:47, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... a pop-up showing the reference would be pretty neat. Kind of like how some keyword-based inline advertisements work, or the "show original text" [edit: highlighting] option of Google Translate. Also, with the upcoming version 3 of the CSS specification I think you can specify an alternate version of a page for printing. But, all that lies further down the line, as browser support is inconsistent or lacking. SharkD (talk) 00:08, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
CSS has had support for alternate stylesheets depending on media (e.g. print) since CSS2 was published in 1998. --Xover (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I somehow thought that alternate media support was still "a thing in progress", and automatically associated it with the in-progress CSS3 specification. SharkD (talk) 17:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Question

Hello. Can somebody tell me why references doesn't show in Wenceslaus I, Duke of Cieszyn article? They used to work in the past and nothing has changed within the article, so I suppose change occurred in reflist. Thanks. - Darwinek (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There are no <ref> tags in the article currently. Gimmetrow 11:49, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
They are in the succession box at the bottom. - Darwinek (talk) 12:12, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh. The references/reflist tag must follow the ref tags for the refs to show up. That's not a references/reflist issue; it's part of the cite.php mechanism. Gimmetrow 12:23, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Thank you very much for helping me out. - Darwinek (talk) 13:37, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Need another template that works with 2 columns in all browsers

Template:Reflist doesnt work with multiple columns in all browsers. I need a format with only 2 columns. Is there any already made, that works in all browsers? If not, can anyone help me make one? thanks Ark25 (talk) 01:52, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The only way to do that is to manually lay out your content with a 2-column table, or to use CSS to position two separate DIVs next to each other in the same manner. But of course, that won't work for the refs because you can't insert table markup into the middle of the generated reference list. Anomie⚔ 02:05, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
This is an on-going problem with Wikipedia, there is previous discussion at Template talk:Reflist/Archive 2008#Multiple columns deemed bad. DuncanHill (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
This is a general problem with the mozilla extension at the heart of the template; like SVG image formats, most browsers don't support it, not just some. Such tech frills ought be waited upon... If it doesn't work in IE5, shouldn't be used imho as the customer base has machines from modern to legacy machines running 80386 processors...
{{#if: {{{colwidth|}}}| style="-moz-column-width:{{{colwidth}}}; -webkit-column-width:{{{colwidth}}};
 column-width:{{{colwidth}}};" 
| {{#if: {{{1|}}}| 
style="-moz-column-count:{{{1}}}; -webkit-column-count:{{{1}}}; column-count:{{{1}}};" }} }}>

The above dynamic code snippet is nice ... someday stuff.

  • If the template is slowing page loading too, this is a frill we need live without. Has anyone made a feature request on Bugzilla for an optimized <reference-2> </reference-2> feature that would CACHE the columnized table... in effect doing the same thing?
  • The kicker to me, is Brion Vibber's advice on that previous discussion was all but ignored. If he thinks two columns are a bad idea, I'm certainly not going to advocate against the advice of the foundations chief technical officer... particularly in light of the bare fact most browsers don't recognize the extension and may never. Until and unless Microsoft IExx supports the format, no format frill should be used on our pages which are written for customers needs', not our own. (Yeah, it sucks, but this is a real engineering issue and the implementation of this in the first place indicates a definite lack of experience in the real world engineering issues of being burned by backward compatible issues. Enthusiasm is a good thing... but needs further mature reflection.
  • I'll be nominating the template in TFD for alteration to do 'very little' (in effect disarming it for now), just in case someday the mode can be supported. // FrankB 19:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Editprotect request 2008-08-01

{{Editprotect|Reflist}}

  1. TFD log page and it's subpage is readyhere
  2. SO.... Plz add (Expanded and presubs'td link: ({{tfd2}})

<div class="boilerplate metadata plainlinks" id="tfd" style="background-color: transparent; padding: 0; font-size:xx-small; color:#000000; text-align: center; border-bottom:1px solid #AAAAAA; ">‹ The [[Help:Template|template]] below {{#if:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|(''[[Template:{{ucfirst:{{BASEPAGENAME}}}}|{{BASEPAGENAME}}]]'')|}} is being considered for deletion. See [[Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_August_1/reflist|templates for deletion]] to help reach a consensus. ›</div>{{#ifeq:{{NAMESPACE}}|Template|[[Category:Wikipedia templates for deletion|{{PAGENAME}}]]}}

VERBATIM via cut and paste on the template BEFORE the "<div class..." (GRAB 'IT' in edit mode)

  1. Check a whatlinkspage or two and make sure it's showing up properly, and maybe make an explict link to that TFD subpage
       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_August_1/reflist#Template:reflist
  2. I subst'd the above and checked the link so cut and paste that above directly, so you can all the working in one try... for this will affect lots of pages. Thanks // FrankB 19:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
If all I have to do is copy and paste the above, at the very top of the template (before anything else), I can handle this. I know nothing about code/script/parser/whatever, so I want to be clear. - auburnpilot talk 19:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
FYI, this template is one of the 10 most used templates on WP, on 537,205 links, so whoever fills this request, BE CAREFUL. MBisanz talk 19:49, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Not done. We're not going to have 500,000+ pages re-render so that an incredibly visible template can show an advertisement for a deletion discussion. Advertise it on the village pumps and noticeboards and put a note in the /doc subpage. Editing this template is unnecessary. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Agree. TFD is not the proper way to draw attention to making a revision on a template. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 20:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Have to agree it's a handy sucker... OK. With those counts, let it stay a virtual nomination... here!

Cheers all // FrankB 20:21, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Belated Imported section from here

Usage statistics and rewrite proposal

I decided to download the pages-articles dump from http://download.wikimedia.org/enwiki/20080724/ and extract statistics on the usage of this template. Out of 523160 uses (give or take a few) of the template in mainspace on that date, I get the following statistics:

Parameters Uses Percentage
(none) 459779 87.88%
|2 50894 9.73%
|1 8883 1.70%
|3 2452 0.47%
|colwidth=30em 472 0.09%
|4 199 0.04%
| 149 0.03%
|colwidth=35em 62 0.01%
|colwidth=25em 54 0.01%
|colwidth=60em 42 0.01%
|colwidth=26em 24 0.00%
|colwidth=40em 23 0.00%
| 2 20 0.00%
|colwidth=20em 19 0.00%
|5 12 0.00%
|6 8 0.00%
|small 6 0.00%
|0 6 0.00%
|colwidth=50em 5 0.00%
|group=note 3 0.00%
|colwidth=45em 3 0.00%
|2| 3 0.00%
|colwidth=80em 2 0.00%
|colwidth=15em 2 0.00%
|col=1 2 0.00%
|3|left 2 0.00%
| 1 2 0.00%
|trimmed 1 0.00%
|small=yes 1 0.00%
|s 1 0.00%
|Reflist 1 0.00%
|" 1 0.00%
|MPI microfluidics 1 0.00%
|Johnny Ashcroft verbal account 1 0.00%
|January 2008 1 0.00%
|In Portuguese 1 0.00%
|group=r 1 0.00%
|group="Note" 1 0.00%
|group=notes 1 0.00%
|group=nb 1 0.00%
|group=cn 1 0.00%
|font 1 0.00%
|date=September 2007 1 0.00%
|Country Music in Australia: Volume 2 by Erice Watson 1 0.00%
|colwidth=90em 1 0.00%
||colwidth=25em 1 0.00%
|colwidth=22em 1 0.00%
|colwidth=19em 1 0.00%
|animalphys 1 0.00%
|90em 1 0.00%
|8 1 0.00%
|3|resize=92% 1 0.00%
|2<!--3 to dense--> 1 0.00%
|2[http://www.camdenabudis.net] 1 0.00%
|2|120% 1 0.00%
|2\ 1 0.00%
|17 1 0.00%
|@ 1 0.00%
| 1 0.00%

Usage for column-count in this sample ranges from 0 to 6, with outliers at 8 and 17, and column-width from 15em to 90em.

If we rewrite the template to use CSS classes, each value for column-count greater than 1 and each value of column-width would have to have their own classes added to MediaWiki:Common.css to remain supported. Appropriate defaults could be chosen for existing values that are no longer supported (e.g. a count of 6 could use the maximum supported count). Once that is done, instructions could be added to the documentation (and gadgets could even be added) to allow overriding of both the font size and the multiple columns.

IMO, 3 columns and 30em columns might be worth adding based on the above numbers, but not any of the rest. I have put together a proof-of-concept rewrite of {{reflist}} at User:Anomie/Sandbox3. Anomie⚔ 15:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Font size

Is there particular reason for using font-size:90% here? Are there objections to changing it? --MZMcBride (talk) 20:48, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

To what? Gimmetrow 21:06, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
Essentially removing it. Making it font-size:100%. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
(ec) And why? It has been that way since May 2006; the font size reduction was originally applied to all articles across Wikipedia,[2] but some people objected (apparently some based on individual browsers/articles where a small font size caused a problem and some based on the general inability to override it on a per-page basis) and the current references-small class was created.[3] Discussions seem to have been at (in no particular order) [4], [5], [6], and [7].
Any editor who is extremely bothered by it can simply override the CSS font-size declaration on the references-small class in their monobook.css or other skin css file. Is there current discussion on the issue, or is this it? Anomie⚔ 22:11, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the size should be increased, but it is kind of complicated.
This template only does two things, both of which are disliked by some editors (partly just when used incorrectly):
As was said at MediaWiki_talk:Common.css/Archive 4#Font size reduction, after testing various sizes, I and a few other editors vastly preferred 95% as a "small" font size.
It'd be wonderful if someone proficient with wiki-code and web-usability would take this in hand and fix things. Please! :) -- Quiddity (talk) 22:21, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
I personally use 85% in all my tables and lists. Not too big, not too small. SharkD (talk) 01:07, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
In your browser/settings. In my browser, anything under 90% requires leaning forward and squinting to read. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:45, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I have all my font sizes set to "medium". If ~90% causes you to have to squint, then maybe your settings are too small. SharkD (talk) 14:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
I leave all my settings as stock, so that I see what other users who use the default setup see (for accessibility/usability testing). I also encourage older acquaintances to give me feedback on how well Wikipedia works for them, and have been told a few times that legibility of small fonts is a problem. -- Quiddity (talk) 17:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
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