Module talk:Footnotes

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Footnotes module.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Archives: 1, 2, 3: 6 months

Module:Footnotes is permanently protected from editing as it is a heavily used or highly visible module. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit.

Push to clear the last few ones.

See Wikipedia:Bot requests#Help clear Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors.

Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:05, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"n.d.a" vs. "n.d. a"

At Capri-Sun, I have two references that I'd written as {{harvnb|Capri Sun Group|n.d. a}} and {{harvnb|Capri Sun Group|n.d. b}}. I could've sworn they worked as intended when they were added, but maybe I just overlooked this before, because I don't spot anything relevant in the history. Either way, as it stands, these render as "Capri Sun Group & n.d. a" and ""Capri Sun Group & n.d. b", which appears to be because L131 is expecting no space before the disambiguating letter. But I don't think most people would write "n.d.a", which looks like the a is part of an acronym. "n.d. a" is much clearer. I would suggest that both should be allowed, as should "nd a" in contrast to "nda". I believe all we'd have to do is add a ? before the %l on lines 65, 66, 131, and 132. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 03:06, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those references appear to be working as expected and I'm seeing them displayed with a space between n.d. and the disambiguation. What error message are you seeing? It may have to do with the script you're using -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:12, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ActivelyDisinterested: The issue isn't the space falling to render; it's the ampersand showing up because the module reads "n.d. a" as a name rather than a date -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 14:27, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Capri Sun Group n.d.a

Capri Sun Group n.d.b

Capri Sun Group 1997a

Without spaces ↑

Capri Sun Group & n.d. a

Capri Sun Group & n.d. b

Capri Sun Group & 1997 a

With spaces ↑ Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 14:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a space makes the module read it as a name rather than a date, and this put an ampersand before it. What I'm saying is that, while that's reasonable for years like 1997a, for n.d. in particular a space should be understood as part of the date. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 15:01, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry misconstrued the issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the pre-module version of the harv/sfn templates always treated the final parameter as the year, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 20:54, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Tamzin & ActivelyDisinterested:

APA uses n.d.-x. It seems like Chicago and Harvard referencing do as well. I've added the pattern for that to the sandbox module:

Live

Capri Sun Group & n.d.-a

Sandbox

Capri Sun Group n.d.-a

But you'd also need to add support in Module:Citation/CS1. Right now it gives an error if you suffix anything to n.d. separated by a hyphen or space (only Capri Sun Group n.d.a works):

Capri Sun Group (n.d.). "Frequently Asked Questions". Capri-Sun.com.
Capri Sun Group (n.d.a). "Frequently Asked Questions". Capri-Sun.com.
Capri Sun Group (n.d. a). "Frequently Asked Questions". Capri-Sun.com. {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
Capri Sun Group (n.d.-a). "Frequently Asked Questions". Capri-Sun.com. {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Also some stats while thinking about changes:

5,041,630 pages with cite web
15,112 pages with cite web using n.d.
45 pages with cite web and n.d.a (without spaces)
55% of cite web invocations have no date parameter (not an issue without author-date short citations)

I'd support adding support to both modules for "n.d.-" if that's the norm in published citation styles. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 11:01, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Continued at: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#"n.d.a",_"n.d._a",_or_"n.d.-a" Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So far, no response at all over there. Idk if it's a good idea to add support for a type of date in only one of the modules. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:36, 21 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Re Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors

I've been trying to whack down the amount of articles in this Category and have come across a List that I can't find any Harv errors or Harv warnings in, and yet here is List of fictional diseases listed amongst the error'fied articles. Can anyone tell me why? Thanks - Shearonink (talk) 03:33, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a false positive, because {{Cite MW}} is a template that wraps {{cite web}}, and this module didn't know about it yet. I'll fix. Please feel free to report any such mysterious false positives here. Thanks for cleaning all of this up! — hike395 (talk) 07:19, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Trappist script doesn’t flag false positives but the css modification (as described on the error page) does.

Andy02124 (talk) 12:08, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks you guys for looking into it. Btw the Category has now inched up to 85.1% fixed/empty. Seems like it had been at a straight 85% for forever... - Shearonink (talk) 15:14, 9 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two additions

I use these templates pretty often and have had several issues that have led me here. Can the following be added to the whitelist: Template:Lagomorphs2018, Template:HMW2016 Volume 6 ['CITEREFSmithJohnstonAlvesHackländer2018'] = {'Lagomorphs2018'}

['CITEREFWilsonLacherMittermeier2016'] = {'HMW2016 Volume 6'} -- Recon rabbit 17:24, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

— hike395 (talk) 03:41, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I'll be back in a long while once I'm done with the lagomorphs, since by that point I'll be using Volume 7 for the rodents. -- Recon rabbit 12:02, 11 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Efloras and Template:BONAP

The first template is sort of whitelisted, but it isn't working correctly. There are 4 lines dedicated to it in the whitelist variable, but this template handles citations to a number of floras published on efloras.org. The most-cited are Flora of North America and Flora of China, published in many volumes with different authors and dates for each. It seems like it needs an entry in wrapper_templates to get it working properly. The second template is simpler; it should always produce 'CITEREFKartesz2014'. (In theory the year could change in the future but it should be stable in practice.) Choess (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And as long as I'm requesting whitelisting of botany wrapper templates, Template:Jepson eFlora can also take many different authors and will probably need to be handled in wrapper_templates. Choess (talk) 21:30, 12 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Choess: I fixed {{BONAP}}, but when I search for harv errors caused either by {{Efloras}} or {{Jepson eFlora}}, I find no errors caused by either template ~~(the one error returned by PetScan is caused by other templates)~~. Is there a particular article you are concerned about? — hike395 (talk) 01:59, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pair skating

Hello,

I keep getting false positive errors for a source in Pair skating. It's for just one source, even though the code looks exactly like other sources that use the snfp template.

Looks like this: Kestnbaum (2003), p. 218. sfnp error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFKestnbaum2003 (help) Harv error: CITEREFKestnbaum2003 has multiple targets (2×).

Hopefully, someone will assist. I've tried to resolve the problem myself, but so far have been unsuccessful. It's very frustrating! Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 00:34, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to replace ref 86 (permalink) with an appropriate {{sfnp}} template because Kestnbaum 2003 is also listed under §Works cited (permalink).

—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:46, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Trappist the monk, that did it! It was a simple solution all along, I guess I just needed a second pair of eyes to see it. Thanks so much, especially for your quick response. You're a gem! Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:45, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another Tolkien to whitelist

['CITEREFTolkien2024'] = template_names['ME-ref']

Thanks, Andy02124 (talk) 18:25, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done — hike395 (talk) 01:51, 20 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Module:Footnotes/anchor id list updates

@Hike395, are the changes in Module:Footnotes/anchor id list/sandbox ready to be merged into Module:Footnotes/anchor id list? I'd like to get the incompatibility with Module:Cite resolved so we can clean up articles that are exceeding the WP:PEIS limit. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:23, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at their comment on the last edit Template:Sfnp/test 2 is failing -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:32, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The changes to anchor_id_list/sandbox do not appear to have broken test_2, although the test is indeed broken. I can investigate further, although not until next week. If it is urgent, we can temporarily revert the sandbox. — hike395 (talk) 11:20, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

NHLE and false positives

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T407617

The harv no-target error list has recently been inundated with pages that invoke the National Heritage List for England template. It is proudly non-standard (as admitted in the documentation) but hasn't been flagged until now. I don't know how the error list is generated but it does seem to be picking up errors that were ignored before.

I discovered a slightly suspect way to suppress the false positive errors. If there is more than one invocation of NHLE, the parameter "fewer-links" can be set to yes to suppress redundant links to National Heritage. If you set the second instance of this parameter to "x", no errors are raised. If all the instances are already set to "x", set one to "yes". I've worked through the "A" section of the error list but this "fix" is not intuitive and I wonder if I should continue or stop until a better solution is found.

It's been very disheartening to see the list swell with these new errors. Andy02124 (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those error messages were purportedly caused by a security 'fix' at MediaWiki which has since, apparently been refixed. A null edit will probably be sufficient to undo the effects of the security fix.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 18:42, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The problem seems to have resolved itself without any intervention on my part. Good to see the percent resolved back over 80.

Andy02124 (talk) 19:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]