Context

In the first increment of the autoname improvements, we want to replace the :n reference naming pattern with a human-readable default name generated from a MediaWiki message key.

User Story

As a Wikipedia editor,

I want auto-generated reference names to be readable instead of cryptic :n values,

so that I can better understand and reuse references.

Requirements

• Ideally the fallback reference name should not be hardcoded, but rather taken from an existing message key.
• Provide communities a way to configure the fallback to a preferred string (that does not override any exisitng message keys fro references.)

Acceptance Criteria

• Hide behind a feature flag defaulting to false wgCiteCitationTypeAutonames
• New auto-generated reference names replace the :n pattern with a human-readable default name.
• The default reference name is based on a MediaWiki message key (localized per wiki) cite-ve-dialogbutton-reference-title
• A number is always added at the end of reference name (eg. Reference-1, Reference-2)
• Each new auto-generated reference increases the number
• Existing reference names in articles are not changed.
• Reference names are visible after saving and reloading VisualEditor, switching from VE wikitext, or when reviewing changes in the visual diff before saving
• Communities can override the fallback default string via configuration.
• Set feature flag to true on test.wiki and beta cluster

Out of Scope

• Changes to existing reference naming behavior or trigger conditions.
• Changes to VisualEditor UI for manually naming references.
• Changes to stored reference names in existing articles.

Open Questions

• How exactly do communities override the fallback message?
  • Answer: Using the same message key as for the citation type title but with a suffix -autoname
• How do we normalize the content for the names?
  • See investigation in T431568: Investigation: Restrictions of the reference name attribute
• Do we normalize names to lowercase?
  • Answer: We're not doing that, names are currently also upper/lower case mix
• What's the length threshold, and how do we cut?