Community Wishlist Survey 2023/Citations/Auto-merging the identical references in HTML output

Random proposal ►◄ Citations The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Auto-merging the identical references in HTML output

Problem: Identical references used more than once on the page are not merged in the output, and thus in a certain way reduce the comfort of the listing in the References section.
Proposed solution: No other special requirements.
Who would benefit: Readers.
More comments: This proposal was preceded by the task of my bot: User:Dušan Kreheľ/Bot:Merging identical references by the bot.
Note: When implementing, watch out for the phab:T311369 bug.
Phabricator tickets:
Proposer: Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 17:56, 6 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

On enwiki, this is largely carried out by editors through :en:Wikipedia:reFill or via bot :en:User:Citation bot (the relevant bot task seems disabled though). It would be great to have something similar baked in during the publishing processing. Robertsky (talk) 18:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
reFill can generate lots of errors, which is why it's done manually as the output needs to be checked. ActivelyDisinterested (talk) 21:21, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
:en:Wikipedia:reFill:

reFill NG is broken for English! Revert to reFill. ,,,, 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 04:08, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would this be just for visual editor edits? That might be the best way to do it. When editing with VE, the user expects some magic to happen with references. When editing the raw wikicode, the user does not want or expect any magic to happen. They want exactly what they type to be published. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Robertsky: For only VE? No. The output is not identical to the code. Currently, here are the most violator: phabricator:T246960. Dušan Kreheľ (talk) 18:57, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you meant to ping @Novem Linguae. Robertsky (talk) 18:58, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This should be resolved in the source, not in the rendered HTML. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:28, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this seems more appropriate for a bot to fix in source than a behind-the-scenes rendering patch. David Eppstein (talk) 21:51, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support Robertsky (talk) 18:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Xbypass (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's not very common, but duplicates do happen. MarMi wiki (talk) 19:56, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SeGiba (talk) 21:02, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 21:03, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Zhanglide (talk) 21:10, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mapatxea (talk) 21:28, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Significa liberdade (talk) 21:32, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:45, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Joalpe (talk) 21:48, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rtfroot (talk) 21:50, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Magnoliasouth (talk) 22:44, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Chetvorno (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --NGC 54 (talk｜contribs) 00:43, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dupe citations can make it harder for the reader to know who claimed what. LunafreyaLaphicet (talk) 00:57, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support 26 Ramadan (talk) 01:42, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support HoHo3143 (talk) 02:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hehua (talk) 02:50, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Makes reading seamless Prof Ranga Sai (talk) 03:49, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support EpicPupper (talk) 05:12, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 05:34, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Soumendrak (talk) 06:17, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Doktor Züm (talk) 07:19, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Afernand74 (talk) 07:59, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Martin-78 ^{(discutailler)} 08:04, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jeeputer (talk) 08:54, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Oltrepier (talk) 09:02, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Remy34 (talk) 09:08, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support SunDawn (talk) 12:44, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lion-hearted85 (talk) 13:03, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support FinixFighter (talk) 15:28, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support That's not common but duplicates do happen as people don't know the reference has already listed. Thingofme (talk) 15:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Franz.wohlkoenig (talk) 16:52, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Erfil (talk) 19:14, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support De nue pw (talk) 22:07, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support I think this will help a lot because I sometimes re use identical references in an article daSupremo 22:56, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Auton1 (talk) 23:57, 11 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gohan 03:43, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Betseg (talk) 03:57, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support HLFan (talk) 07:09, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Maxwxyz (talk) 12:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lalaithan (talk) 21:44, 12 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Rickinasia (talk) 01:42, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support 08:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
Support --Abubiju (talk) 16:04, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support JAn Dudík (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gillum (talk) 17:52, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Shkif (talk) 18:58, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 13:39, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wikibach (talk) 19:30, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support TimTheDragonRider (talk) 08:25, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support cyrfaw (talk) 11:49, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Polarlys (talk) 21:34, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support El monty (talk) 10:04, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Michka B (talk) 14:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support JFremd (talk) 15:54, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Silva Selva (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tbartovic (talk) 20:18, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sikander (talk) 22:51, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kurmanbek ^💬 16:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dubstar (talk) 18:32, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support —‍CX Zoom (A/अ/অ) (let's talk|contribs) 19:46, 17 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:39, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dmytro Tvardovskyi (talk) 03:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vulcan❯❯❯Sphere! 15:20, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support PamD (talk) 23:53, 18 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support schurdl (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mesidast (talk) 10:08, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 11:09, 20 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Korhoj (talk) 02:36, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Soleil 5 (talk) 15:54, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Bnichols23 (talk) 17:05, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Serieminou (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Chatul (talk) 12:09, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Takamaxa (talk) 15:04, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Morten Haan (talk) 18:15, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Fcastillo (talk) 22:03, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Althair (talk) 04:29, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yes, manipulation of citations could be hell. So everything is done programmatically is good. Juandev (talk) 10:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Support OGPawlis (talk) 10:31, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]