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The following are the Top 10 worst Wikipedia messages, the most-confusing or misleading messages which are displayed to general users.
Top 10 worst messages
editThe following are numbered in rank 1 to 10 (or more), beginning with the worst first:
- wp:Wikimedia Foundation error — It says try again, but almost always caused by a page with too many complex templates.
- Cite error: A set of <ref> tags are missing the closing </ref> — caused by an extra space after trailing slash "<ref name=xx/ >" or omitting "</ref>" at end.
- {{{1}}} as result of "=" in parameter — It is too easy to forget to put "1=" when text contains "=" as in {{nowrap|x=x+1}} which shows "{{{1}}}".
- Expression error: Unexpected ( operator — The problem is a curved bracket parenthesis "(" where a math operator should be placed, as in: {{#expr: 3 (5+6) }} which needs "3*" asterisk to multiply numbers.
- Template:xx — When a blue template name appears by itself, where text should appear, it means the processing died and could not continue.
- Nothing shows the real error - This could be the worst of all.
In practice, there are many ref-tags or templates which can malfunction, depending on the parameter values, and show absolutely no results at all.
Early list
editThis list was begun on April 12, 2013, and there are many other error messages to consider. The list is not limited to 10, but the upper 10 messages should be some of the most-confusing, or most-frustrating, messages which many users might see.