User talk:Mikeblas/Archives/2023/May

Question about "fix referencing error"

Hi, I am relatively new here, why did you do this change? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Occupational_fatality&curid=21689547&diff=1151852135&oldid=1151721455 Londondare (talk) 11:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Hi! Referencing on Wikipedia is byzantine and poorly documented, so I'm always happy to answer questions ... and that's also why I try to fix problems that I can find.

In this article, you added a new reference which was great. You defined the reference with an anchor name in case it as reused; that anchor name is the name=":1" part of the reference. We can see that in the first block of the diff, at line 39.

The problem is in line 52, in the second part of the diff you linked. There, we see the {{reflist}} template which actually produces the list of references in the article. Then, after that, we see <ref name=":1" />. That tries to invoke the ":1" reference again, as if you were adding the same reference to some other statement in the article text.

Of course, you don't need to do that; there's no reason to add a footnote to the references table at the bottom of the article. And you can't, anyway: when the {{reflist}} table is generated, it clears all the reference definitions -- so <ref name=":1" /> isn't defined anymore and the footnote it generates doesn't refer to anything -- it makes an undefined reference error.

The fix, then, is to just remove the <ref name=":1" /> invocation after the {{reflist}} invocation. Now, though, the ":1" reference anchor is no longer used, so I removed that from the definition, too. And reference anchor names should be descriptive, like "Schmitt2001" or "NYTFebruary05", not something meaningless like ":1".

It seems like this error (invoking a reference footnote just after the {{reflist}} template seems to happen a lot, so I've been wondering if a certain editing tool or extension is actually causing the problem.

I hope that all helps -- let me know if you have any other questions about it or if it's too confusing! -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Ooop! Sorry, I kept saying "you did" in my explanation, but the original edit wasn't something that you yourself did. Sorry about that. -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:39, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks you! Your explanation is great :) Londondare (talk) Londondare (talk) 09:05, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

May 2023

@Mikeblas Hello, this is in response to your comment |here. Thanks for fixing the reference error. The contents were already deleted from the Islamist Shi'ism article by another editor. So I thought it would be better to take the relevant parts and edit it in the Islamism article.

-- Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 15:33, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for restoring the reference definition at List of guests at the coronation of Charles III and Camilla. It was an accidental deletion, sorry! A.D.Hope (talk) 23:48, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

No worries at all. It happens all the time! -- Mikeblas (talk) 23:51, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thank you so much Mikeblas for the restored revision on the List of K-pop songs on the Billboard charts. I'm not sure what this IP editor intends. I have communicated with them some on the Talk page of this article and can't decide whether they are genuine or a troll. I have counted them using six different IP addresses for their edits, which alone, is nothing to complain about. Thanks for your helpful monitoring! You must see a lot of things! Bonnielou2013 (talk) 04:09, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

I hope it helps; I'm worried that I walked into a much more complicated discussion than I had anticipated. Thing is, regardless of the reason to remove the material, those edits removed formatting, footnotes, and I think some references, too. The execution should be better. -- Mikeblas (talk) 04:25, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for your guidance, much appreciated.--Bonnielou2013 (talk) 04:38, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

happy to help! -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

London Irish Amateur

Why have you included me in this edit summary - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=London_Irish_Amateur&oldid=1154131354 ? I've never even looked at that article, let alone deleted anything. Gugrak (talk) 13:14, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Oop! So sorry; looks like your username was on my clipboard when I didn't expect it. -- Mikeblas (talk) 13:16, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Let's talk first

Hey Mikeblas, how's it going, just wondering if, instead of simply reverting wholesale my last 10 edits to Glossary of agriculture, you could address your desire to purge the glossary of unreferenced additions by communicating with me first, via my talk page, or better yet via the article's talk page? I am in agreement that the ideal glossary has all of its entries suitably referenced to reliable sources. I am also aware that many of the entries in this particular glossary are at present unreferenced. I'm doing my best to go through them all one by one and add references where necessary, but it is a tedious process, and I have more fun adding new entries than updating existing ones. So naturally that task gets neglected. I also sometimes add new entries without immediately referencing them, mostly accidentally but occasionally consciously, intending to return to the job later. Not a totally sound practice, perhaps, but an inevitability of my editing style which I make genuine attempts to correct.

An even less sound practice is wholesale reversion without first discussing. In so doing, you've deleted many more referenced entries from this article than unreferenced ones, not to mention some useful glossary-specific formatting. A lot of work, as I expect you can appreciate. Now I gotta go back through it all and restore the deleted entries which had already had good references in the first place. Could've saved me the time, and instead sacrificed a bit of your own, by reaching out with your specific concerns.

Please be aware that other editors like myself are very uncomfortable with the wholesale method. There's a reason talk pages exist. If your aim was merely to draw my attention to the urgency of the referencing problem, consider it drawn.—PJsg1011 (talk) 03:19, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Nothing is deleted; I just removed the items from the visible version of the article. If you need them back, then you can look at the version history of the article and either copy the material you want, or directly revert to your selected version. That action doesn't take much time at all. (In fact, it looks like you did exactly that.) There are also drafts which can be used to edit before publishing -- to get things up to snuff and then make the decision to publish. Further, it's possible to simply reference additions while adding them in an article -- adding a dozen or so items without references isn't just a simple mistake. Looking at the history of this glossary, I count four different times that I've fixed referencing problems, so I'm glad you've decided to pay attention to the matter. -- Mikeblas (talk) 15:42, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Seems the trouble was an invoked ref name with a missing declaration, which redtagged entries I thought I had properly referenced; my apologies. I've now corrected it. Just thought I would take a few seconds to communicate that on your talk page.—PJsg1011 (talk) 20:31, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Yep, there was no definition for a reference that was used a dozen or so times. I'm glad you've fixed it! -- Mikeblas (talk) 22:47, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

CS1 error on List of high school football rivalries less than 100 years old

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page List of high school football rivalries less than 100 years old, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "bare URL and missing title" error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 21:51, 19 May 2023 (UTC)

CS1 error on List of high school football rivalries less than 100 years old

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page List of high school football rivalries less than 100 years old, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "bare URL and missing title" error. References show this error when they do not have a title. Please edit the article to add the appropriate title parameter to the reference. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 04:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks

I should have cleaned up that ref on Effects of Meditation article myself. I missed it. Best.Littleolive oil (talk) 19:16, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

No worries! Happens all the time. -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:13, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks

I wouldn't say I was particularly being careful when I made that edit. Thanks for fixing it. Cheers, Cutlass^Ciera 14:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Happy to help! :) -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:49, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

CS1 error on Superstation

Hello, I'm Qwerfjkl (bot). I have automatically detected that this edit performed by you, on the page Superstation, may have introduced referencing errors. They are as follows:

• A "missing periodical" error. References show this error when the name of the magazine or journal is not given. Please edit the article to add the name of the magazine/journal to the reference, or use a different citation template. (Fix | Ask for help)

Please check this page and fix the errors highlighted. If you think this is a false positive, you can report it to my operator. Thanks, Qwerfjkl (bot) (talk) 21:22, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Composite construction

I just wanted to point out that I am a little surprised by your editing style with this[1], since it seems to go against your stated aims on your user page. It also goes against the various bits of advice on how to handle unreferenced material in Wikipedia. It is pretty obvious from the section that some dumb editor (me) has forgotten to provide the full reference. Deleting the entire section is not helpful for the encyclopaedia, as it would not be difficult for another editor to track down what was intended by the orphan references. You could even find the likely candidate yourself by looking at articles linked in the section (Cutty Sark).

A simple tag and a ping would have, I hope, been my approach, rather than a wholesale deletion. This is not something I am going to lose sleep over, but neither is it something that can go without comment. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 19:30, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you didn't approve of the way I fixed your erroneous edit. In the end, though, that doesn't matter. What does matter is that you fixed it. -- Mikeblas (talk) 19:36, 31 May 2023 (UTC)