Reference editing (Community Wishlist/W190)

Description

When editing a section of an article, if the reference is list defined or defined out of the section been editing, you cannot see the reference detail or edit it. This means editing the whole article or hunting around to find where the reference is defined.

Provide a way of seeing the reference text and enable it to be edited from within the section that it is used.

Needed for both VE & wikitext editor.

Assigned focus area

Reference management

Type of wish

Feature request

Tags

Citations, Editing

Affected users

All editors

Phabricator tasks

T356471

Other details

Created: 17:19, 2 August 2024
Last updated: 23:26, 10 October 2025
Author: Keith D (talk)

Voting

This wish currently has 3 supporters. Voting for this wish is open until it is completed.

Supporters of this wish

Support Femke (talk) 16:16, 10 October 2025

Support Pppery (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2025

Support Partial support. I think this is a good idea, and it would be worth assessing what it would take to achieve this, but I suspect it is not easy, and might not have value in proportion to the effort it would take. This one would need to be weighed carefully against what else could be achieved with a comparable effort. Jmabel (talk) 06:12, 5 December 2025