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This page explains the use of the reftag element,<ref>...</ref> for defining referencefootnotes, as displayed by using a<references /> tag or a{{Reflist}} template to list the footnotes. A reftag can also be defined by using wikitext function{{#tag:ref|...}} to generate the text<ref>...</ref> and allow direct use ofsubst'ing of templates to embed equivalent markup inside a footnote, or to nest a<ref>...</ref> inside a{{#tag:ref|...}}.
The general format is<ref>text</ref> for a simple reftag footnote. However reftags can have aname="xx" to define a footnote to be reused on a page by named ref,<ref name="xx" />, as when citing the same webpage at several spots in the article text.There can be more than 3,000 reftag footnotes defined on a page, but usually there are less than a hundred.[fn 1]
When citing different pages in a single source, a named ref[1] can be followed by a{{R}} template. Given a ref like "<ref name="author1990">book</ref>", the ref"author1990" can be reused, now using a different page number, say 53. This subsequent ref{{R|author1990|p=53}} will show the same superscript number, with a suffix of a colon and, in this case 53, the page number.[1]: 53 This format allows the reader to click to the reference section, and then click on other references from the same source.
Rather than define hundreds of footnotes in a single list, various reftags could split to some named groupings, such as using "<ref group="gg">...</ref>"" to collect those footnotes into group name"gg" as displayed by<references group="gg" />.[fn 2] For example, a common tactic is to define footnote group "fn" which shows each link as"[fn 9]" for the 9th footnote in thegroup="fn". A group name can be multiple words in straight double quotation marks (group="set xx yy"), but a single-word name with no punctuation or other special characters, just ASCII letters and numerals, can omit the quotation marks (as:group=fn). Hence, many group names are typically one-word labels, to avoid excessive quotation marks.[fn 3]
Rather than using an element<ref>text</ref>, an alternate method is to use the wikitext functiontag:ref, as{{#tag:ref|...text...}} to define the contents of a footnote.
Examples:
{{#tag:ref|Example of tag:ref function}} will show a superscript number:[2] and list footnote "Example of tag:ref function" under the References.{{#tag:ref|Named reftag function xx1|name="xx1"}} will show a superscript number:[3] and list footnote "Named reftag function xx1" under the References below. The footnote name"xx1" then can be reused by putting<ref name="xx1" /> at various points in the text.[3]<ref> citation feature provided byMediaWiki