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The cite extension on Wikia allows you to add footnotes and references to articles, like this.[1]

How to use it

Citations are enabled by default. To create a footnote or reference, simply switch to source mode while editing and then place your text inside <ref></ref> tags. In source mode, the first sentence on this page would look like this:

The cite extension allows you to add footnotes and references to articles, like this.<ref>Like this!</ref>

At the end of the page create a references, footnotes, or citations section and include the code <references />. This will create a numbered listing of your footnotes[2].

Named references

To give a footnote a unique identifier, use <ref name="Here be dragons">footnote text</ref>.[3] You can then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same name. The name cannot be a number, or the extension will return an error.

Only the first occurrence of text in a named ref will be used, although that occurrence may be located anywhere in the article. For legibility, putting the full footnote first is recommended.

For subsequent identical references, use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: <ref name="Here be dragons" />.[3]

When deleting content with footnotes, make sure you do not delete the named citation which holds all the reference information. This will result in an error for all the other footnotes depending on it. Remember to copy the <ref name="Here be dragons">Beware!</ref> to one of the identical references.

Citation needed!

Some wikias use a template to flag information that need citations. Often that means adding {{fact}} or {{cite}} just after the text in question.

To create one of these templates, start a new page called Template:Fact. Switch to source mode, and paste the following code into the page:

<sup><span title="This claim needs references to reliable sources" style="white-space: nowrap">[''citation needed'']</span></sup>

...which creates [citation needed].

Then publish the template.

More fun with citations

Eventually, you may want to create templates specifically for use in references to keep order - for example, a template for web addresses, another for book references.

Finally, you may wish to customize the references list design itself, such as giving it two columns or reducing the text size slightly. See {{#NewWindowLink:http://templates.wikia.com/index.php?title=Template:Reflist%7CTemplate:Reflist}} as an example.

Citation templates

If your wikia deals with an academic subject, you may wish to have default citation templates, including {{cite book}}, and {{cite journal}}. The non-Lua versions of these templates can be found for example, on w:c:psiepsilon:Template:Cite book and w:c:psiepsilon:Template:Cite journal.

References

  1. Like this!
  2. Like this!
  3. 3.0 3.1 Beware!

See also

Next steps

Further help and feedback