Sample Page

Hi, I just wanted to say that I loooooove this bookmarklet. Very handy and I use it a lot. I love how it “flies out” in the textarea editing section so I can manually type in or adjust some parameters that the scripts couldn’t identify. Not a big deal, but one feature suggestion is to add a “Copy” button that will copy the text to the clipboard, but I’m not sure if that is possible (I know that sometimes clipboard-access is not possible because of security reasons…). THANK YOU

Thanks for writing, Darrylhopkins. I replaced the Select button with a Copy buttons in the browsers that support it. —V111P (talk) 11:47, 10 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the script, I have localized it in Italian. https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utente:Rollopack/js/webRefjs

—Rollopack (talk) 07:55, 27 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For date’s autoSearchIn, currently [‘meta-i datePublished’, ‘meta date’, ‘meta Date’]

Please add: ‘meta-p article:published_time’, ‘meta article:published_time’ and ‘meta DC.date.issued’ 1Veertje (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Izno (talk) 20:52, 16 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

thanks 1Veertje (talk) 12:54, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please change the refDocData to this more comprehensive list

var refDocData = window.webRef.refDocData = {
	things: {
		title: {
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-i headline',
				'meta-p og:title',
				'meta-p twitter:title',
				'meta citation_title',
				'meta DC.title',
				'meta dc.title',
				'meta title',
				'title',
				'h1'
			]
		},
		date: {
			formatter: dateFormatter,
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-i datePublished',
				'meta-p article:published_time',
				'meta article:published_time',
				'meta citation_publication_date',
				'meta DC.date.issued',
				'meta-i dateCreated',
				'meta citation_date',
				'meta citation_online_date',
				'meta DC.date',
				'meta dc.date',
				'meta publish_date',
				'meta pubdate',
				'meta-i dateModified',
				'meta date',
				'meta Date'
			]
		},
		author: {
			formatter: nameFormatter,
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-i author',
				'meta-p article:author',
				'meta citation_author',
				'meta DC.creator',
				'meta dc.creator',
				'meta-p og:author',
				'meta-p twitter:creator',
				'meta author',
				'meta Author',
				'meta-p article:author_name'
			]
		},
		siteName: { // the site domain is also used
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-p og:site_name',
				'meta parsely-site',
				'meta application-name',
				'meta citation_journal_title',
				'meta-p twitter:site'
			]
		},
		lang: {
			formatter: function (langCode) { // remove language variant
				return langCode.replace(/([^-_]{2,3})[-_].+/, '$1');
			},
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-i inLanguage',
				'meta citation_language',
				'meta-p og:locale',
				'meta DC.language',
				'meta dc.language',
				'meta language',
				'misc html-lang'
			]
		},
		publisher: {
			autoSearchIn: [
				'meta-i publisher',
				'meta citation_publisher',
				'meta DC.publisher',
				'meta dc.publisher',
				'meta publisher',
				'meta-p article:publisher'
			]
		},
		authorName: {},
		authorWikiArticle: {},
		notAnAuthor: {}
	} // things end
};

Also please change

var dateFormatDefault = dateFormatDMY

Into

var dateFormatDefault = dateFormatYMD

This would make the default output easier to reuse across non-English Wikipedias, and it also aligns better with existing citation tooling, which already emits ISO-style dates. Sorry about the double request 1Veertje (talk) 07:50, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Izno (talk) 16:56, 17 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Could you also change the default date format to YMD? The preferrablilty of this configuration was discussed on this talk page. This aligns the output with ISO-style dates used by other citation tools and makes it easier to reuse across projects (formatting can be handled locally by templates such as {{Use dmy dates}} / {{Use mdy dates}}).

I’ve also slightly pruned overlapping metatags in refDocData (publisher vs siteName) to avoid duplicate values. 1Veertje (talk) 12:10, 19 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Dear @Izno, what’s holding you back in changing the default? It would really be more practical for language versions of Wikipedia if this tool didn’t print dates that are in English by default. Many, like the Dutch, support the cite web template in order to support compatibility with enwiki. 1Veertje (talk) 21:13, 5 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing. I just expected someone to get to it in the past two weeks who wasn’t me and felt comfortable making the changes you want.

In general, don’t make new additions to old changes.

As for var dateFormatDefault = dateFormatYMD, that seems particularly likely not to be changed, if this is being used here. You have been in some extensive discussions locally about lines like that one, and I will not be changing it. Izno (talk) 23:39, 5 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Izno I do think the discussion on the tool’s talk page shows clear support for changing the default to Y-M-D. The only objection raised there was about ISO 8601 and pre-Gregorian publication dates in the abstract, but this tool is specifically a {{Cite web}} bookmarklet retrieving metadata from modern web sources. That concern does not really apply to the default output for this tool’s main use case. Changing the default to Y-M-D would also bring it into line with existing citation tooling such as VisualEditor/Citoid.

Please also note that I made a further adjustment to refDocData to remove overlapping metatags (publisher vs siteName) and avoid duplicate values. Apologies for not getting that exactly right in the earlier revision. 1Veertje (talk) 09:18, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly I think you should just fork this script to work for your wiki. The creator is basically gone for a decade now, clearly indicating this script has no maintainer, and you clearly have opinions about how reference tooling should work that don’t align with how English Wikipedia works. Sorry. As I said, I will not institute that one change either way. You may be able to convince another interface admin, but not me. You may request another response from such at WP:IANB to see if another will do that.

Having the same conversation in two different places: Don’t do that. It makes you look dishonest, because you didn’t get what you want here (though I obviously had not expressed an opinion at the time). See WP:MULTI.

I have changed the one variable again. Please don’t amend an edit request after you have made one and it has been answered in the positive. It only confuses future editors (including me multiple weeks down the road). Izno (talk) 15:47, 6 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I do want to note that the request to change the default date format was part of the original edit request and was not carried out. I therefore reactivated the request using the mechanism explicitly described in the template itself: “This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.”

That was not intended to bypass process or to reopen a settled matter, but simply to indicate that the request had only been partially completed.

On the substance, changing var dateFormatDefault from dateFormatDMY to dateFormatYMD would align WebRef with existing citation tooling and make its output easier to reuse across language versions, as well as in articles that use {{Use dmy dates}} or {{Use mdy dates}} on enwiki. Given that this is limited to a single default variable, I do not think this is an unreasonable request.

I also made a further adjustment to refDocData to remove overlapping metatags (publisher vs siteName) and avoid duplicate values. Apologies for not getting that exactly right in the earlier revision. 1Veertje (talk) 05:26, 7 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I am deactivating this edit request since V111P has returned to editing, and, if there is more to be done here they can be asked to do it themselves. * Pppery * _{it has begun…} 21:16, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]