Multiple uses of the same footnote

mediawiki

MediaWiki documentation:

To give a footnote a unique identifier, use <ref name="name">. You can
then refer to the same footnote again by using a ref tag with the same
name. The text inside the second tag doesn't matter, because the text
already exists in the first reference. You can either copy the whole
footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like
this: <ref name="name" />. The quotes are not required (but still
correct) if the name contains no embedded spaces. The space before the
closing "/" may be omitted.

I understand how to use the same footnote several times, but not how to create a reusable footnote in the first place. What is the exact syntax?

example reference:

<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=list#traffic|title=All Sites - Stack Exchange|website=stackexchange.com|language=en|access-date=2017-04-01}}</ref>

Best Answer

Use <ref name="name"></ref> with the footnote you intend to reuse. For the example reference:

<ref name="name">{{Cite web|url=http://stackexchange.com/sites?view=list#traffic|title=All Sites - Stack Exchange|website=stackexchange.com|language=en|access-date=2017-04-01}}</ref>

Insert your own title inside quotation marks (").