Excess detail in WP:LEDE, using bare urls as references

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  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. OhNoitsJamie Talk 23:29, 3 May 2024 (UTC)Reply