This task is meant to gather the reference-related tickets/issues volunteers think ought to be considered in the context of the broader decision about when/if/how to enable the visual editor as the default editing interface for people who are new to editing.

Relevant tasks/wishes

• VisualEditor should use proper names for references
  • T52568: VisualEditor: Be able to name references manually in the reference dialog
  • T92432: Come up with a better way to auto-label references
  • T245199: Named References in VE: Determine Potential Design Options
  • T334073: Investigation: Autonaming of references in VE
  • T215867: Visual editor reference auto name may collide with existing ref names when the existing reference comes from a template tranclusion
• Ability to convert a {{cite web}} into another template without basically starting from scratch. via RoySmith.
• T52474: In VisualEditor, references in templates cannot be reused and are numbered separately from references in the text.

Background

In a discussion @Robertsky started at en.wiki in August 2024, the idea of enabling the visual editor by default for newcomers and people who are logged out emerged.

In response, volunteers started sharing links to potential bugs they've experienced with generating, and working with, citations in VE. This ticket is meant to collect/organize these potential bugs so that when the time comes to have the discussion about enabling VE as the default editing interface, we can easily reference the issues volunteers have experienced so that we can ultimately decide, which – if any – issues ought to be considered deployment blockers.