User talk:Mikeblas/Archives/2019/April

Why do you tag users when you've fixed the problem?

I only tag users in edit summaries when there's something to tell them about a recent edit of theirs that they can amend for the future, and it's not worth a long talk page message about. But with what you're doing, there's no other reaction one could have to you tagging them while you're fixing the problem in the same edit other than "Cool, thanks for that", so really, why bother? Every editor makes those kinds of errors; even experienced ones. I'm sure even you have. Nobody would be intentionally causing this, so what is it really for? "Look where you went wrong and what I fixed of yours." Wow, great? I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to do other than notify somebody of an accidental error. It's not really inhibiting the page to have a duplicate reference definition. Ss112 22:56, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't notice your note until just now.

A duplicate ref def does diminish the article. The first symptom is a red error message in the references or notes section. Something like: Invalid <ref> tag; name "$1" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page) When such an error is shown, it means that at least one reference (or note) that was intended to be present in the article isn't actually visible to a reader of the article. References are important because content in the encyclopedia must be verifiable. Verifiability a key tenet of the encyclopedia.

I work through the list at Category:Pages with duplicate reference names to try to fix duplicate reference definitions so that the encyclopedia is better-referenced, and so that pages are rendered without error messages about errors. I think it's important that the articles here don't have errors in them, and I completely and strongly agree that easy verifiability is key to the success of the encyclopedia.

When I find a duplicate reference error, I know that someone made changes to the article but their changes didn't do what they intended or expected. After all, nobody intends to cause a rendering error on a page, and it's clear that obscuring another reference wasn't their intent, either. The causal edits usually involve changing or adding a reference, so we can be pretty sure the intention was to have the reference displayed with the article and its content, not hidden and obscured by an error message.

When I make a fix to a referencing error, I usually tag the editor who caused the error in the edit summary where I try to fix the problem. I do this for several reasons. One is to raise awareness about the problem. Because that editor made a change, and we know that change didn't do what they intended, it seems best to assume they're unaware of the problem their edit caused. If they come back and have a look, they'll probably learn something about editing reference tags and using reference templates. Many duplicate refence errors I've found have existed for years before being fixed. That's surprising -- if verifiability and referencing are so fundamental to the encyclopedia, why do some errors exist for many years before being detected and fixed?

But the main reason is that it's possible I haven't fixed the error correctly. By their nature, duplicate reference errors can have ambiguous causes. Some are simple. Maybe some formatting or spacing was changed and two reference definitions should be combined instead of left distinct. Others are more complicated. Maybe two clearly different references are given the same definition name, but then the single definition is used throughout the rest of the article. These situations must be carefully checked to make sure the right anchors reference the right supporting documentation.

Even more complicated scenarios exist, where template-provided reference definitions interact with references in the article, or even references provided by other templates.

Only the author knows their real intent, so when they come back, I'm hoping that they can check the correctness of my fix. Maybe they can make a better one, or maybe they can at least verify that what I did was good enough.

I figure your question is prompted by this edit where I recently tagged a fix I made for a duplicate reference you caused with this change. It's not perfectly clear to me that the link you added and the link that already existed in the article are entirely identical sources, so I'm not completely positive I've made the right fix. When made aware of the change by my notification, you have the opportunity to check my work.

Hopefully, that answers your question. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you've got further concerns.

Meanwhile, I think a far better question is: why do duplicate reference errors occur? I think it's because the referencing system in Wikipedia -- so fundamental to its mission and success -- is byzantine and opaque. The rules, templates, tags, and notation are a quagmire of complexity for editors. How can the situation be improved?

-- Mikeblas (talk) 15:27, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Raja

As I understand it references that are used in templates and articles should be duplicated in the article. The question is why is it showing up now all of a sudden when its been like that for ages.Jason Rees (talk) 16:28, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

It's actually best that references in templates are not duplicated in an including article.

Let's examine the case where the reference and the template try to define the same reference name. The template inclusion will inject its definition of the reference. Then, the article will provide its own definition of the template. If those definitions are exactly the same, then the referencing will work. However, this situation is very fragile. If the reference definitions are changed and differ by even a single character--even if that character is whitespace!--the article will end up displaying an error about the duplicate reference definiiton.

Adding to the fragility, the template might be used from multiple topics in Wikipedia. Or even other templtaes. If any of those articles, or other temapltes, or other articles that in turn include tohse other templates, ends up with a reference definition that's different by even one character, then they too will end up with an error about the reference definition.

In the case of Cyclone Raja, the article had a definition of a reference named "Cyclone Passes W/F". This article also includes the template {{Wettest tropical cyclones in Wallis and Futuna}}. The definitions were precisely the same so the article rendered correctly. When this recent edit changed the definition of that reference in the article and it no longer matched the definition provided by the template.

Because the definitions don't match, the article shows this error in the references section: "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Cyclone Passes W/F" defined multiple times with different content (see the help page)." My change was to remove the reference definition in the article and let the template provide the definitive definition of the reference.

I think my change is quite adquate. It removes the error from the article and makes the reference intention clear. It also promotes the template as the single source for the reference definition. If there's something wrong with the dates in the reference, they can be fixed once in the template and therefore fixed for all articles which include that template.

I hope that explanation makes the intent of my change clear. Please let me know if you've got any questions! -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

1964 United States Senate elections

Hi, On 1964 United States Senate elections you made an edit with the summary "fix duplicate ref def due to edits by User:Rodw" but all I did was disambiguate some names so I don't understand your comment - could explain what I did wrong?— Rod ^talk 06:53, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Oops! Turns out that you didn't do anything wrong -- I did. The duplicate reference definitions I fixed were actually added by User:HappyElectionsNerd83 in edits previous to yours. Sorry about the confusion! -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:49, 16 April 2019 (UTC)