So what is this about? There's a lot of missing context here.

Hello?

Sorry!

This refers to the hacky fix for bug 50423 which added (eventually):

/* HACK: Hide Ref errors in templates */
.mw-ext-cite-error {

display: none;

}

… to ve.ce.MWReferenceNode.css

This bug is asking for a way for these errors to not be shown that doesn't just suppress the conent (they're caused by the templates rendering out of context).

(In reply to James Forrester from comment #3)

Sorry!

This refers to the hacky fix for bug 50423 which added (eventually):

/* HACK: Hide Ref errors in templates */
.mw-ext-cite-error {

display: none;

}

… to ve.ce.MWReferenceNode.css

This bug is asking for a way for these errors to not be shown that doesn't
just suppress the conent (they're caused by the templates rendering out of
context).

I guess we could send some 'nocontext' parameter in the HTTP request which would suppress errors based on missing information... Sounds like it would be even worse than the current solution though.

Change 763101 had a related patch set uploaded (by Bartosz Dziewoński; author: Bartosz Dziewoński):

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Remove hack that hides ref errors unnecessarily

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/763101

Change 763101 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/Cite@master] Remove hack that hides ref errors unnecessarily

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/763101