Goal: understand possibilities and limitations of naming references automatically when reused in VE.
Output: a summary of what is possible and not possible include in an automatic name.

Problem statement

See also asana

• I am an editor editing in wikitext.
• I'm trying to edit an article and I come across the automatic :number names of named references created by VE.
• But I don't know which references they are referring to.
• Because the automatic :number name of a reused reference don't give an indication of the named citation content. It also doesn't reliably match the footnote marker numbers.

Current situation

• VE gives automatic names to references that do not have a name the moment they are reused for the first time from within VE
  • Automatic names contain only numbers and no semantic connection to the source (makes them hard to use)
  • They start with a colon character that looks like it’s some kind of syntax users are not allowed to touch, but it’s really only an (arbitrary) string prefix (e.g. :0, :1, :2)
  • Help:Footnotes - Wikipedia says that purely numeric numbers should not be used (see also T92432#6350118)
  • Automatic names are only editable in wikitext (not in VE)
• In wikitext users create names for references when reusing references
  • Sometimes a template auto-generates the name
• User generated names and automatic names are displayed together in wikitext

• This has been requested via: Technische Wünsche: Vorlagenbearbeitung bietet keine Wiederverwendung von Einzelnachweisen; Defaultnamen
  • T92432: Come up with a better way to auto-label references
  • Community Wishlist Survey 2023: VisualEditor should use proper names for references
  • Community Wishlist Survey 2022: VisualEditor should use human-like names for references
• The user script RefRenamer allows creating naming schemas.

Investigation findings

• We can change the current notation (:0) with random looking numbers to "unnamed-1" or similar to make it more clear users can change the name (in wikitext) and reduce confusion.
  • Should also start with 1, not with 0.
• A trivial scheme like “unnamed-1” makes it relatively obvious that the name is meaningless. A badly chosen automatic name might cause more workload and confusion.
• Generated names can be localized per wiki via the message system.
• Can’t use characters like < and " in the name from a technical perspective, probably also shouldn’t use other symbols that have existing associations e.g. [ and {
• When we make the syntax change, we will run into cases where an article has :1 and unnamed-1. VE making “dirty diffs” by renaming the old ones automatically is probably not advisable. But users could write a bot that renames the old notations.
• Surfacing the name and allowing renaming in VE could be a next step, existing tool for systematic autonaming using cite template parameters. We will handle this in separate tickets and with UI/UX input.

Open questions

• Are there other situations where auto names are generated?
• What should the string look like? (UI/UX) For example:
  1. Let users define a string in a local setting?
  2. Use type of reference (like article, newspaper, etc.)?
  3. Use the domain name for web links?