reFill is a tool that expandsbare URL references semi-automatically, hosted onToolforge attoolforge:refill/ng. It adds information (page title, work/website, author and publication date, if metadata is included) to bare URL references, and does additional fixes as well (e.g. combiningduplicated references). The tool is written inPython and licensed underSimplified BSD License. The tool is an open-source replacement ofDispenser's Reflinks. The source code is availableon GitHub. The templates created automatically by the tool need to be reviewed to ensure that they are accurate, as they are often not.

Use reFill

Paste the title of the article into thePage name textbox. You can choose to outputplain CS1 citations or{{cite web}} templates.

If there is a particular article which containsbare URLs in the references, like this one,^[1] and you would like to request aWikipedian that already has reFillinstalled (and is familiar with how it works) to help you fix the problem:

1. Open the article in question in your browser
2. Click the 'edit' button
3. Paste the following line into thevery top of the article:
           {{Cleanup bare URLs}}
4. Click the 'preview' button to verify that your change did not interfere with any other parts of the article
5. Click the 'save' button

This will display a visible message (the text of which is shown at the top ofTemplate:Cleanup bare URLs) at the top of the Wikipedia article, and will also add the article to ahidden category which requests that a Wikipedian experienced with reFill, apply it to the bare URLsin that article. As of January 2023^[update] there were over 88,000 articles tagged as needing such attention from a volunteer, so don't hold your breath!

• Use plain formatting instead of{{cite web}}: If selected, the tool will fill out bare references inplain CS1 format instead of{{cite web}}. All available metadata is included.
• Do not remove link rot tags: If selected, the tool will not remove anylink rot tags from the source, even if no bare references are skipped.
• Add blank metadata fields when the information is unavailable If selected, the tool will insert blank|author= and/or|date= for filling in manually, when the corresponding metadata is unavailable.
• Do not add access dates: If selected, access dates will be omitted from the result.
• Use the base domain name as work when this information cannot be parsed: If selected, the base domain of the link will be used in the|website= field if the website does not supply its name in embedded metadata.

1. Check the checkbox atPreferences →Gadgets →Advanced →Install scripts without having to manually edit JavaScript files (documentation) and click Save.
2. VisitUser:Novem_Linguae/Scripts/ReFillLink.js.
3. Click "Install"

Insert this code intoyour common.js:

importScript('User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/ReFillLink.js'); // Backlink: [[User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/ReFillLink.js]]

AnAPI is available, enablinguser script and bot developers to take advantage ofthe APIs exposed by reFill to complete bare references programmatically.

ReFill is not perfect, and never will be. You are responsible for every edit that ReFill 2 suggests so you must take the time to inspect every citation that this tool creates and fix anything that isn't quite right. Do not make work for other editors to clean up.

Some publications misuse the HTML metadata tags that ReFill extracts such as:

• the author name (first= and last=) containing the name of the publication e.g.first=Deutsche|last=Welle (www.dw.com) representingDeutsche Welle, rather than the author's name, orfirst=Editorial|last=team
• the title including metadata elements that shouldn't be in the title, e.g.Kosovo MPs elect lawyer Vjosa Osmani as president| DW| 04.04.2021 – the title here is "Kosovo MPs elect lawyer Vjosa Osmani as president" and the text that follows it – such as the article's date – should be stripped out and a date= element added if not already present.

You'll need to remove these issues yourself.

ReFill extracts the date from the datemeta tag. On some web pages there isn't such a meta tag, but the date can easily be found at the top of the body of the page. ReFill will not find it, but you can add it manually.

ReFill is based onCitoid which is maintained by theWikimedia Foundation. Citoid depends on technology calledZotero, which is the bit that actually extractsmetadata from web pages. Zotero uses hundreds of 'translators' which containJavaScript code that knows how to extract useful metadata from different layouts of web page, particularly academic resources.Wikipedia:Citing sources with Zotero explains how to use Zotero yourself, enabling you to get closer to how the metadata is extracted.

This is the same way that the'cite' button on the toolbar ofWikipedia's visual editor works.

• When ReFill encounters a bare URL which is an archive site, such as inthis example:
  • it writes the archive URL to the deprecatedarchiveurl parameter rather than the newerarchive-url parameter
  • adds the discontinueddeadurl=y rather than the currenturl-status=dead parameter
  • does not add the mandatoryarchive-date parameter

You will need to fix such references yourself manually to avoid an error showing in red in the references section. If your edit results in such an error, please fix it. The archive date can be found embedded in Wayback Machine links.^[a]

If using an editor that supports global replace,archiveurl can be globally replaced byarchive-url anddeadurl=y byurl-status=dead.

• When combining duplicate references, if one of them is already named, pointers to that name's reference are not updated when the name is changed.

• CAPTCHA pages should be ignored.^[1]

See theReFill workboard andCitoid workboard onWikimedia Phabricator for fuller lists of known issues. That is the preferred place for recording issues, rather than adding to the list above.

If the tool is stuck displaying "waiting for an available worker",use this link to raise a report to get it restarted. You will need to register for aPhabricator account, which you will be able to link to your Wikipedia account. Fill in the description field and hit the "Create New Task" button.

If you have found a bug or want extra features, please either:

• add a task tothe Phabricator board if you are able (Phabricator account required) - preferred method - either a
  • feature request or
  • bug report

  being sure to enter Tool-refill as the tag

or

• post tothe talk page.

Having noWikimedia Cloud Services dependency, reFill can be installed on your own computer so that you can work on it. To contribute to reFill, create afork onreFill's GitHub repository, make your changes and submit apull request. Thank you for your contributions!

Volunteers are needed to help support and maintain reFill. If you are a software developer with experience inPython,Celery andNode.js and you are willing to help to any extent then pleaseleave a message.

To translate the tool, please head over totranslatewiki.net.

• Citation Style 1, the style of citation generated by reFill
• CiteGen, a companion add-on for Chrome and Firefox that generates references
• User:Dispenser/Reflinks, the original tool by Dispenser
• Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Citoid
• Web2Cit

{{User:UBX/reFill}}

This user usesreFill to expandbare references.

• Tech Talk: Automated citations in Wikipedia: Citoid and the technology behind it onYouTube, explains how this works
• List of Zotero translators at GitHub

• Wikipedia citation/link tools

• Indexed pages
• Wikipedia references cleanup