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"Re-use" does not allow changes specific to the new use (like correct page numbers, quotes)
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Description

Ideal behavior:

  1. Create a citation; use page= or quote= to make the citation specific to a particular part of an article (something like "X said Y <ref>page 111 shows where X said Y</ref>
  2. Write more text ("later X said Z"); select the citation menu and "Re-use"
  3. Have the option to add a different quote or different page number showing where X said Z

Instead, and I think somewhat confusingly to new users and not-usefully for power users, editing page= or quote= will also change the page number and citation in the previous citation.

You can see an example of where this would be useful here where I have created two cites that are redundant because the original cite included a quote that I wanted to retain but wasn't appropriate for the next citation to the same book.

As far as I know, doing this the Right Way would also require changes to the underlying reference/citation system, so this may not be a VE bug per se and could even be a WONTFIX, but filing it for completeness.

Event Timeline

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Yeah, we spent a bunch of time on the wording for this feature to try to avoid misleading people who want a "duplicate and then let me change it" feature; the latter doesn't exist in MediaWiki, as you say, and when we built the re-use feature we were almost exclusively focussed on feature parity rather than extension.

I think doing this as anything less that a "real" re-build of the references system is going to be seriously dissatisfying, however.

Yeah, I figured this was "wishlist" at best. Shame. :/

It was pointed out at the German Wikipedia that anyone wanting to use VE as their main editor and working to make their article a featured one may find this task to be amongst their main blockers.