Community Wishlist/Focus areas/Reference management
Description
Improve the metadata, visual display, and efficiency of working with references.
References are an integral part of Wikipedia. They enable volunteers and readers to verify that the information the project offers is reliable.
To increase the ease and grow their capacity to ensure Wikipedia includes information people can rely on, volunteers are seeking to expand the ways in which they can work with, manipulate, and display references (and information about them).
Volunteers listed some visual improvement suggestions, such as a consistent way to add footnotes and references at the end of a page, and they'd like to see reference details and add sub-chapter content previews, as well as updating the reference syntax to indicate which part of the text was sourced. Additionally, volunteers submitted wishes that would help improve meta information, which could increase editing and patrolling efficiency. Some examples include: understanding how many sources are used for an article and how often a source was reused. Lastly, volunteers would like us to find ways to automate actions, such as replacing category tags to standardize their use across articles, and they would like to see easier options to link to other language versions. Current limitations include that the sfn template isn’t intuitive in VisualEditor and that cite-achor limitations restrict internal cross-referencing.
Other details
Last updated: 14:24, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
Created: 12:50, 26 January 2025 (UTC)
Wishes in this focus area
Below is a list of wishes that have informed this focus area. More wishes may be added to this table over time. Voting for the focus area is not a guarantee that each wish will be explicitly delivered; rather, the wishes are suggestive of the problem at large. Once a focus area is adopted, the respective team will work alongside communities to prioritize and deliver on the most impactful solutions.
| Wish | Phabricator tasks | Type | Projects | Date (UTC) | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reference editing | Feature request | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| Updated references syntax to improve quality management and sources | T20231 | System change | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open |
| Display Total Number of References Next to Language Links | Feature request | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| Cite-anchor | T20231 | Feature request | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open |
| Make it easier to use sfn in VE | Feature request | All projects | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| A bot to automatically replace in categories: Template:CatDiffuse by Template:Diffusion by condition | Feature request | Wikimedia Commons | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| 出典の再利用回数の表示に何番目の再利用位置か表示してほしい | Feature request | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| Show the section when previewing a section | System change | Wikipedia | January 26, 2025 | Open | |
| A clean way to add footnotes, references, or sources - not inline, but at the end? | Feature request | Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikiversity, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Meta-Wiki | January 26, 2025 | Open |
Voting
This area currently has 2 supporters. Voting for this area is open until it is completed. Show your support using the button below.
Supporters of this area
Support Femke (talk) 14:31, 26 January 2025 (UTC) This focus area has multiple wishes unrelated to references, but overall seems worth it. Support Keith D (talk) 21:39, 29 January 2025 (UTC) Support the improvements to references, unsure that the Commons category request fits here