User talk:CA&E460/Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad

Issue with sources

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I'm currently using this page to work on a re-write of the Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad article. In the history section, my sources are not showing up correctly, and a large amount of text has disappeared (though it is still visible in the editor). I have looked over this several times, but still cannot figure out what I've done incorrectly. Could a more experienced editor help me locate the problem?

CA&E460 (talk) 18:59, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You have used "ref" tags which are not closed. In one paragraph you opened a reference with <ref name=beforetheNSL>, and then, without closing that one, you tried to open another one with <ref name=CERA106>, and then another one, and another, and so on. Only at the very end of the paragraph did you give a closing </ref> tag. The software took everything up to that </ref> tag as all being part of the reference you first opened, and, as with all references, the content of the reference is not shown in the text of the article. That is why "a large amount of text has disappeared". In another paragraph you did the same, except that you didn't give a </ref> tag. Since the opening <ref...> tags did not have any corresponding close tag, they are not recognised as references at all, so the text is shown just as you wrote it, including the text of what were intended to be ref tags. When you use a <ref name=...> tag, the first time you use the particular reference you need to write it as <ref name="name">text of the citation</ref>, where the </ref> marks the end of the reference and closes it. Each time you use the same reference again after that, you need to use <ref name="name" />. Note the inclusion of the / at the end of the tag, which makes it self-closing. If you miss that / out then the software thinks you are defining a new reference, and interprets everything as part of that new reference until it finds a ref closing tag. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 21:51, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]