What would be a proposed solution that wouldn't trigger the language conversion? (I assume the -{ is added for this reason.) I can get it done, just need to know what should we replace it to.

Ah I think I know what you mean, it should be on the articles themselves and not get injected via the templates.

https://sh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedija:Pijaca#c-Ladsgroup-20260615023600-Incompatibility_with_Parsoid

Asked in the WP:VP to make sure people are okay with it.

Two ways we can move forward with this:

• Create a new template like Refbegin2 and Refend2 without the extra pieces, migrate the text of basically going {{Refbegin}} to {{Refbegin2}}-{
• Just add the -{ to articles and then remove it from the template once done.

If we create {{refbegin2}} without the -{ and define (for transition purposes) {{refbegin}} as {{refbegin2}}-{ then editors can just use {{subst:refbegin}} when they initially author the template. That also avoids "breaking" pages while the bot is running. Does that sound reasonable?

The addition of -{ to Refbegin and }- to Refend was a temporary, hacky solution, and we should avoid cementing it further into these templates. We'll be adding these to individual cite templates instead. I can remove these tags from Refbegin and Refend before then so that you can proceed with Parsoid implementation on our wiki, if you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself.

Done.

Thanks!