Help:Cite

The Wikipedia footnotes system has the ability to detect errors. This page documents the error messages and provides an understanding of the problem and solutions.

Overview
Cite.php is the software extension for the footnotes system. Footnotes are created by enclosing content within  and are shown in a list generated by. The reflist template is commonly used to include the tag with some formatting options.

Error messages
The messages will show as bold red.

Tools
refTools can be enabled via Preferences → Gadgets → refTools. It includes an error checking tool for common problems.

Cleanup categories
Most of the error messages include broken ref, which puts the page that triggers the error into Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting.

The internal message "Cite error group refs without references" puts the page that triggers the error into Category:Wikipedia pages with broken references.

Technical information
Internal messages are generated by the Cite.php extension and shown as a MediaWiki message. See the Parser hooks section of Special:Version for the installed version of Cite.php. These messages are in the MediaWiki space and can be modified only by admins.