User:Ferien/WikiProject TBA/Phase IV

Category:Pages with broken reference names

This error occurs as a ref name is being used to refer to a reference that doesn't exist. To fix this, you should try the following:

1. Check page history to see if the reference has been removed. Recent vandalism or an accident may have caused the reference to be removed and only the refname to remain.
2. Check the corresponding article on the English Wikipedia, as the article may have been adapted from here with mistakes in copying over the references. You can then copy the full citation the refname is referring to and publish your changes. Note most errors will be caused by this!

• These broken references will usually appear in the form: <ref name="Rules of the Game 2"/>
• The aim is to get one of them in this form (that you are usually able to grab from enwiki): <ref name="Rules of the Game 2">{{cite web|last=Waller|first=Curtis|title=Ja Rule: Rules of the Game|url=http://www.mtv.com/bands/archive/j/jarule01/index2.jhtml|publisher=MTV News|date=February 17, 2001|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010820065650/http://www.mtv.com/bands/archive/j/jarule01/index2.jhtml|archive-date=August 20, 2001|access-date=August 17, 2008}}</ref>
• Once one of them is in that form, then the refname has a reference attached to it, and it can be used as many times as needed.

To get more people involved in the project, please link to this page in the edit summary. You can use the shorter link: [[User:Ferien/TBA/P4]]

847

As of 22:25, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Update this page

386

As of 11:37, 12 November 2026 (UTC)

• --Ferien (talk | join TBA!)
• Plutus ^{💬 🎃} — Fortune favors the curious
• MrMeAndMrMe_Talk
• Brigandeur (talk)
• CountryANDWestern (talk)

• One tricky situation is where references are generated by templates. An example is the reference named "aus" in Fly Away (Lenny Kravitz song), with the corresponding article on enwiki. That reference is generated by {{Single chart}}. I don't see an easy way to get the markup for that reference so that it could be copied over. An alternative is to invoke that template, but it's meant to be used in a table, which would imply pulling in the whole Charts section. Brigandeur (talk) 08:20, 11 July 2025 (UTC)

  Brigandeur, as the song released to radio in May 1998, I changed it entirely which used another reference and therefore resolved the issue. --Ferien (talk | join TBA!) 10:45, 13 July 2025 (UTC)

  You can get markup for the reference from the template with Special:ExpandTemplates or API:Expandtemplates. Brigandeur (talk) 22:06, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

I worked it down to 98 articles today. Most of the ones that are left are the difficult ones, though. Ones that either have multiple sources missing that'll take time to locate and copy and paste over from En. articles... Ones where the source is embedded in a template on En. that you need to hunt down... Ones where the citation can't be found even with a little extra digging. Hopefully we can get a bunch of eyes on those in the coming days and knock it out soon. CountryANDWestern (talk) 01:34, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

I would also recommend tracking down the citation in the en article history as well if you haven‘t tried that; this has worked for me in worse-case scenarios. If you have the time, I would also track down why the citation wws removed, since the citation could have been problematic. MrMeAndMrMe_Talk 01:48, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I've been doing that a lot. Comparing when the source was last in the Simple article (or when it was first added) and finding the same time frame in the En. article. CountryANDWestern (talk) 01:53, 19 September 2025 (UTC)

• Roxelana - The broken references were added to the English Wikipedia as broken references. They've never not been broken it seems.
• 2025 Jamaican general election - Similar case; added as broken references

*United States - source is available in the En. article; however, adding it the infobox where it is used on Simple breaks the infobox.

• Warfare in eastern Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War - cannot find where it came from; there are so many Russo-Ukrainian War articles on En. that I can't track these down.
• Trollhättan school stabbing - sources are not in the contemporary English Wikipedia article.
• Surface-to-air missile - sources are not in the contemporary English Wikipedia article.
• Political parties in the United States - sources are not in the contemporary English Wikipedia article.
• Lodha - sources are not in the contemporary English Wikipedia article. Also a caste article which is always a messy time.
• List of SpongeBob SquarePants cast members - the reference at En. is an about.com link and it is spam-filtered here. Will likely necessitate finding a new source.

*List of Indian state fishes - cannot find where this source comes from. *Hinduism-Zoroastrianism relations - no equivalent En. article. Part of this page was added at another En. article (see here) but it's just a copy and paste of our section so it's the same cite error.

• BAIC Group - not in the contemporary En. article.
• 2018 FIFA World Cup and 2018 FIFA World Cup knockout stage - Both seem to be embedded in some template or they're being pulled on En. from another article and I can't figure out the layers to it for some reason.
• 2022 Formula One World Championship - not in contemporary En. article. I asked the editor who added it to take a look.

Basically any remaining one can be figured out, they're just going to take time. Things like the first ladies articles or Hizb ut-Tahrir where we have double digit things that need to be replaced. CountryANDWestern (talk) 19:16, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

Managed to fix the issues with 2018 FIFA World Cup, 2018 FIFA World Cup knockout stage, and 2022 Formula One World Championship. ShadowBallX (talk) 03:45, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not change it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No more changes should be made to this discussion.