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This is a Wikipedia project page for those interested in the topic of allowing named references in VisualEditor.
When re-using references that don't have a name yet, VisualEditor automatically assigns one. VE created ref names used to be numeric with a colon prefix, i.e., <ref name=":0">, <ref name=":1"> and so on. There has long been interest in having VE support meaningful named references – by offering an option to manually add/change ref names in VE or having VE automatically assign meaningful names.
Starting October 2026 wikis can configure VE to create content-based reference names and also change which fallback name(s) to use if no content-based name can be created. English Wikipedia uses {{Autoname}} and Module:Autoname to automatically create names like <ref name="LastnameYear-1"> when re-using a reference in VisualEditor. Fallback names on English Wikipedia are currently <ref name="Reference-1"> for most references and <ref name="Book-1">, <ref name="Website-1">, <ref name="News-1"> and <ref name="Journal-1"> (if a reference uses {{Cite book}}, {{Cite web}}, {{Cite news}} or {{Cite journal}} but still fails to create a content-based name). Improved reference names have been enabled via community configuration. See mw:Help:Cite/VisualEditor reference names for more information on configuration options.
The goal of this page is to be a central location which summarizes, or links to, all information of interest on this topic.
The main project page for VisualEditor is Wikipedia:VisualEditor, which has numerous subpages. There are similar pages on MediaWiki, starting with mw:VisualEditor. In general, the set of MediaWiki pages are more up to date, and WMF members tend to look at and possibly respond at the pages there more than at Wikipedia.
If you find a bug or other new problem, please raise a Phabricator ticket to report it, after first searching open Phabricator tickets about VisualEditor to make sure it hasn't been reported already.
Tools available to mitigate the problem include:
You can help, by finding articles having VE-style numeric references, and fixing them using the RefRenamer script.
You can use an advanced search to obtain a list of articles with VE-style numeric references in need of adjustment. The following link will generate a search result page containing up to 50 articles with VE numeric ref names:
Click any result, to view an article that could use improvement with RefRenamer. this page to generate a different list of articles from the link, every time you purge.
A 2019 wishlist proposal to allow the user to name references was rejected for being too complex while the foundation proposed an alternate proposal of better automatic reference names that could be accepted if submitted in another wishlist survey. Based on that proposal a request for comment has been started in 2026, resulting in m:WMDE Technical Wishes implementing a new mechanism for wikis to configure VE auto-generated reference names.
Wikipedia (Help, and Project):
WikiMedia
Meta
Discussions (in any project)
Phabricator Report VE bugs in Phabricator: here. (Ticket statuses as of 17 July 2026; non-exhaustive list)
⟶ VE Project overview page to track all VE issues