Hello, and thank you for your efforts to improve Wikipedia, and in particular for adding references! However, adding a bare URL is not ideal, and exposes the reference to link rot. It is preferable to use proper citation templates when citing sources, including details such as title, author, date, and any other information necessary for a bibliographic citation. Here's an example of a full citation using the {{cite web}} template to cite a web page:
Lorem ipsum<ref>{{cite web |title=Download the Scanning Software - Windows and Mac |publisher=Canon Inc |work=Ask a Question |date=2022 |url=https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART174839 |access-date=2022-04-02}}</ref> dolor sit amet.
which displays inline in the running text of the article as:
- Lorem ipsum[1] dolor sit amet.
and displays under References as:
- 1. ^ Download the Scanning Software - Windows and Mac". Ask a Question. Canon Inc. 2022. Retrieved 2022-04-02.
If you've already added one or more bare URLs to an article, there are tools available to expand them into full citations; try the reFill tool, which can resolve some bare references semi-automatically. Once again, thanks for adding references to articles.
Template documentation | This template should always be substituted (i.e., use {{subst:Uw-bareurl}}). Any accidental transclusions will be automatically substituted by a bot. |
Usage:
{{subst:Uw-bareurl}}{{subst:Uw-bareurl|Article}}references a specific article{{subst:Uw-bareurl|Article|Additional text}}adds text onto the end of the message instead of "Thank you"{{subst:Uw-bareurl||Additional text}}or{{subst:Uw-bareurl|2=Additional text}}also adds text onto the end of the message instead of "Thank you", but doesn't link a page as specified by the article.
- This standardized template conforms to guidelines by the user warnings project. You may discuss the visual appearance of these standardized templates (e.g. the image in the top-left corner) at the user warning talk page.
- Please refer to the index of message templates before using any template on user talk pages to warn a user. Applying the best template available for your purpose may help reduce confusion from the message you are sending.
- Please remember to substitute the template using
{{subst:Uw-bareurl}}rather than{{Uw-bareurl}}. - To give greater detail to your message, you may add the article and some additional text to the end of the template. If such article or additional text includes a URL or anything which includes an equal sign ("="), it may break the parser's function unless you prefix the article or the text with a named template parameter. Use "
1=" if the article contains an equals sign and use "2=" if the additional text contains an equals sign (such as a URL). - This template automatically populates the relevant category with the user page. If and when the user account gets blocked, or approximately eight weeks pass with no further action, that categorization is automatically removed.
- This is the documentation for the {{Single notice}} standardized template, as used by several single-level user warnings or notice templates. It is located at Template:Single notice/inner(edit talk links history).