The message was part of the original patch that introduced the group
feature in 2009, see https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/rECIT75004e33.
Notice how there was never a test scenario for this message. A test
was added in 2020 via I07738cc.
The message appears only in a rare edge-case when a group is entirely
unused in the text, and only when the group is not empty. The shortest
possible example is:
<references group=g>
<ref group=g name=a>a</ref>
</references>
Just adding something unrelated like `<ref group=g>x</ref>` to the
text changes the error message. Now the group is "used". But this
notion is confusing to begin with. References can be part of a group,
and we can use references, but we can't use groups as if they are a
separate entity.
A better error message already exists.
Notice how this special error message doesn't appear anywhere in the
Parsoid code path. That was already using the other, more generic
error message.
Bug: T269531
Change-Id: I63f663d76e45e6c3d664f145d9a564ee00ff53cd
Same as Icfa8215 where we removed the …_suffix messages.
This patch is not blocked on anything according to CodeSearch:
https://codesearch.wmcloud.org/search/?q=cite_references%3F_link_prefix
According to GlobalSearch there are 2 usages we need to talk about:
https://global-search.toolforge.org/?q=.®ex=1&namespaces=8&title=Cite.references%3F.link.prefix.*
zh.wiktionary replaces "cite_ref-" with "_ref-", and "cite_note-"
with "_note-", i.e. they did nothing but remove the word "cite". This
happened in 2006, with no explanation.
ka.wikibooks and ka.wikiquote replace "cite_note-" with "_შენიშვნა-",
which translates back to "_note-". One user did this in 2007,
16 seconds apart.
It appears like both are attempts to localize what can be localized,
no matter if it's really necessary or not.
https://zh.wiktionary.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Shibo77?offset=20060510https://ka.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Trulala?offset=20070219
Note how one user experimented with an "a" in some of the edits to
see what effect the change might have, to imediatelly revert it.
The modifications don't really have an effect on anything, except on
the anchors in the resulting <a href="#_ref-5"> and <sup id="_ref-5">
HTML. It might also be briefly visible in the browser's address bar
when such a link is clicked. We can only assume the two users did this
to make the URL appear shorter (?). A discussion apparently never
happened. Bot users are inactive.
Both pieces of HTML are generated in the Cite code. Removing the
messages will change all places the same time. All links will
continue to work. The only possible effect is that hard-coded
weblinks to an individual reference will link to the top of the
article instead. But:
a) This is extremely unlikely to happen. There is no reason to link
to a reference from outside of the article.
b) Such links are not guaranteed to work anyway as they can break
for a multitude of other reasons, e.g. the <ref> being renamed,
removed, or replaced.
c) Even if such a link breaks, it still links to the correct article.
There is also no on-wiki code on zh.wiktionary that would do anything
with the shortened prefix:
https://zh.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?search=insource%3A%2F_%28ref%7Cnote%29-%2F&title=Special%3A%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns2=1&ns4=1&ns8=1&ns10=1&ns12=1&ns828=1&ns2300=1
I argue this is safe to remove, even without contacting the mentioned
communities first.
Bug: T321217
Change-Id: I160a119710dc35679dbdc2f39ddf453dbd5a5dfa
