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Contents 1 A proposal to simplify and improve footnote markup in Wikipedia 2 Frequency of footnotes 3 Ref names (with quotes) 4 Style Recommendations in WP:FOOT questioned 5 Named references 6 Reflist: recent edit 7 REFPUNC 8 ref syntax should be improved 9 uh-oh 10 Missing group parameter? 11 can anyone help me with a small problem? 12 Absolute Astronomy citations 13 cite.php update 14 Help:Footnotes 15 Ref name (again...) 16 List-defined references and error messages 17 Discussion re whether to permit use of all-numeric YYYY-MM-DD format in footnotes 18 Problem with the #tag trick 19 MOS:PAIC? 20 Ref tags and punctuation 21 Nested references with "name"

[edit] A proposal to simplify and improve footnote markup in Wikipedia

Wikipedia offers a simple and powerful method to create footnotes (a.k.a. references) through the <ref> element in the wiki markup. The resulting HTML markup, however, is more complex than necessary. This study shows how the number of elements required to represent a footnote can be halved, while improving the reusability of the content. Howcome (talk) 09:42, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

You can use a background image for IE6 & IE7 and still use only the 'a'. s/name/id/ would further reduce the number of chars. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've added the s/name/id idea to the paper and credited you. Background images I'm less sure about, they scale and print poorly. --Howcome (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the details of this. This may be a valuable suggestion but, even if so, this is not the proper venue for it. This belongs at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension_talk:Cite/Cite.php and/or at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Bugzilla. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:15, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer, I'll put it up there.--Howcome (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Have you proposed the same at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)?

Cpiral (talk) 18:53, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Frequency of footnotes

Are there any specific guidelines for how frequently to refer to the same source? I've seen articles in which every sentence or even phrase references the same source repeatedly, which makes it horrible to read. On the other hand, in the past I've used a single footnote to back up an entire paragraph of three or four sentences, only to have a {{Refimprove}} slapped on it. What's the general consensus here? –Spudtater (talk • contribs) 11:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

General consensus is that a single footnote can be used to back up a paragraph and/or multiple sentences within one paragraph. New paragraphs (or individual items in a list) need the ref repeated. If there is a direct quote in a paragraph, that sentence also needs the source. If the paragraph uses multiple sources, it needs to be clearly noted (so can again be repeats). In general, the same reference does not need to be put individually on back to back sentences within one paragraph. If someone is tagging refimprove, ask them why they tagged, and if that is the reason, explain and point here (and to the many FA/FLs which follow this consensus). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 13:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that –Spudtater (talk • contribs) 21:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ref names (with quotes)

Recently I put some "Pet Peeves" mini-essays on my user page, and identified this article as one that I have a peeve about. You can read my peeve here. I would like to change the examples in this article, and add some of the things mentioned (not the whole peeve, just the relevant points). Any comments or objections before I proceed? --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 11:54, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd prefer users to be in the habit of using quotes so that when they have a ref name like <ref name="Smith 2004"> it will work how they expect, rather than <ref name=Smith 2004>. I think your view on very short reference names is a bit too simplistic; yes, reference names are better kept short, but many articles refer to Smith's work of 2002, 2004, 2005(a), 2005(b) etc. so a slightly longer name is needed to add clarity and I'd hope we're beyond the 8.3 days of DOS where spaces and punctuation weren't allowed. Rjwilmsi 14:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

As I have noted at Help:Cite errors: "Footnote names are case sensitive. They may not be a numeric integer. The quotes are optional unless the name or group includes a space, punctuation or other mark. It is recommended that names and groups be kept simple and restricted to the standard English alphabet and numerals." --Gadget850 (talk) 15:01, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Style Recommendations in WP:FOOT questioned

I have placed the following at [[WT:CITE#Style Recommendations at WP:FOOT#Style_recommendations:

I dithered about whether to place this here or on WT:FOOT. WP:CITE and WP:FOOT both identify themselves as Editing style guidelines. I decided to place this here because of the {{Nutshell}} info at the head of this page which says, "This citing sources guideline (a) discusses when to use citations, (b) shows how to format individual citations, and (c) provides methods for presenting citations within Wikipedia articles."

WP:FOOT#Style_recommendations contains recommendations regarding placement of superscripted footnote links in relation to punctuation which appear to me to conflict with consensus results from discussions of this subject which I have seen here in the past. I want to raise a yellow flag about this. I will leave a note on WT:FOOT mentioning this and pointing here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:43, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

-- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:45, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Named references

Is it possible to have something like this: Some paragraph.<ref name="smith"> Some other paragraph.<ref name="smith"> End of article. <ref name="smith">John Smith, 2006 Blah Blah</ref> without the last one showing up on the page? This way we could have cleaner markup in the article proper and separate the article's prose from the refs, which especially with {{citation}} template can be quite hard to read and confusing to new editors. I like finding and inserting refs into articles, but I've begun to hesitate since they make the markup intimidating. Shreevatsa (talk) 18:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Not with the current version of cite.php. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Right. But see this. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 04:00, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, Boracay Bill. That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind... do you know if that extension will make its way into Wikipedia eventually? Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't know when—or if. I have this modified cite-body.php up on a local test wiki and have noticed that in its present form it seems to have a problem with mismatched links and backlinks in hidden named refs where the group- parameter is specified; I haven't spent any time trying to figure out the cause or a solution. The process for getting such things incorporated into Wikipedia is explained in Wikipedia:Bug reports and feature requests. From what I've seen, (1) that process does not appear to work very well and (2) some changes seem to occur without the process being followed (e.g., the addition of the group= parameter to the production version of cite-body.php). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:45, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

(update) See Bugzilla:18890. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for notifying me! I've added myself to the CC list. Shreevatsa (talk) 15:52, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

(update) There's a test wiki for this available here. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:21, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the meantime, it is possible to unclutter the article body even without any software changes, if we are willing to have the superscripts show up in the Notes section: see here for an example. Yes, it is a bit ugly to have them show up like that, but I think the benefits are worth it. Can we discuss this? Shreevatsa (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

That is much worse than "a bit ugly"; it is hideous. It does not conform to any real-world convention, and is therefore confusing to the reader. Furthermore, it is easier to maintain (edit) articles if the content of the citation is adjacent to the text that the citation supports, especially if an editor is only editing one section at a time, which is the preferred practice of most experienced editors. Finell (Talk) 17:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree that is unacceptably bad. I think a combination of specific notes with a list of references maybe a way out. See e.g. Charlemagne. This is the way historians cite in their publications and you will find this style on several history related articles. Arnoutf (talk) 18:03, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The "hideousness" can be fixed by just enclosing them in a <div style="display:none;"></div>, I realised. As for keeping references in the same section, I agree with you, but note that already we often have prose in one section referring (by name) to citations whose content is only present in other sections. It would not be too great a loss to have all references consistently placed at the end, IMHO. In any case, we can just keep the references at the end of each section, where they don't interfere with the prose. How does this sound? Shreevatsa (talk) 21:33, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Such a radical change to Wikipedia's layout and Manual of Style would require a very strong concensus, which is very unlikely. Meanwhile, please follow the exisitng guidelines. Finell (Talk) 00:39, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

It is not a radical change (or any change at all) to either of them, as it does not change the appearance of the article. And the purpose of discussion is to build consensus — is there somewhere else you think this discussion should be carried out? Shreevatsa (talk) 01:11, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

There are problems with the cite.php system. People look for solutions to those problems. The idea you found, Shreevatsa, is one that others have come across before. (There are discussions in the archives here about it.) It's generally been thought to be confusing to readers, since here, clicking on "3b" doesn't take you to the text. If you hide that line of numbers in a "display none" diff, then the "b" is still there but goes nowhere. But what you want is something other editors want - a system that supports something like LaTeX-style markup. I think Bill's patch would be a step in that direction. Gimmetrow 01:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Glad to hear I'm not the only one concerned about this. :) You are right; I was just realising that the last backward-reference(?) from a footnote would lead nowhere. That kills my suggestion. I agree we should wait for the appropriate modification to cite.php to get into the Mediawiki version that Wikipedia uses, given this. In the meantime, we can only try our best to keep the citation markup clean, I guess... Regards, Shreevatsa (talk) 02:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The request to define all the references in one section often comes up in discussions at {{reflist}}. See template:Reflist/testcases2 for an example— you still get an extra backlink from the reference list into the hidden section which makes it unacceptable for many.

As to Charlemagne— that is something of a mess. It is neither of the three accepted systems: Footnotes, shortened or parenthetical.

There is also the proposed, but not accepted User:CitationTool/Hybrid referencing. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:05, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) See Bugzilla:18890 and http://siteslot.com/testwiki/ -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:44, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Reflist: recent edit

Re this edit. I changed it in my previous edit because the 2 "reflist" references appear absolutely identically in my browser. You have to go into edit mode to see how they're different. I was relying on the following text to explain their uses, and the explanation for "Reflist" was followed by the explanation for "Reflist|2", so .... But now that it's back the way it was, I still see 3 options, 2 of which are identical. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:57, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] REFPUNC

The text of WP:REFPUNC says that editors are not required to place the ref tags in any particular place with respect to punctuation, so long as it's consistent in the article. Footnotes [5] and [6] label the examples as "correct" and "incorrect" locations with respect to punctuation.

Why does footnote [6] contradict the text that it's supposed to be illustrating? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It's been more than a month, with no answer, so I've corrected the footnote to match the text of the section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I think there needs to be a discussion on if it is acceptable or not. To me, it looks like the footnotes were conflicting, and shouldn't just be changed. If there was a prior discussion that stated it is the proper method that would be helpful. In not, there should probably be a new focus on whether it should be acceptable or not. This page probably isn't watchlisted by many people. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 19:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no possible way to accept both "Some editors prefer the in-house style of journals such as Nature, which place references before punctuation." and "Putting the ref before the punctuation, like Nature does, is always wrong." This blatant self-contradiction needed to be resolved.

In case of such conflicts, I think that WP:IAR and WP:CREEP are relevant: there is no good reason to restrict editors' freedom of judgment on this point, so we should not decree the one True™ answer (despite my not-so-secret hope that they'll all "independently and freely" choose the first option, which I personally think is more aesthetically pleasing). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

There obviously should be an option for editors to choose between using Harvard referencing or the <ref> format. These are two different methods of providing inline citations. However, for this case, for a reader to go from article to article and see two conflicting methods of where the citation is placed seems counter-productive. Like you, I prefer the first method, but if community consensus prefers the second method then so be it. The many articles across Wikipedia would look better if there was a uniform setup to the placement throughout. A poll/discussion could tailor the guidelines to point out what is the preferred style (based on what consensus favors). --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 19:55, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

[1] Here's the edit that added the conflicting info. Gimmetrow 22:18, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Given that this edit put this information in the wrong section, I'll bet that the editor was unaware of the contents of WP:REFPUNC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ref syntax should be improved

At the moment there is no possibility to know, if a ref element is attached to a sentence or a set of sentences, e.g.

This is sentence 1. This is sentence 2.[ref]Smith (2008), p. 7.[/ref]

Instead, the following syntax should be possible:

This is sentence 1. [ref "Smith (2008), p. 7."]This is sentence 2[/ref]

Here, it is obvious, that sentence 1 cannot be found in the book by Smith. That would allow a more precise knowledge about the origin of parts of an article. Additionally, this would allow mouse-over effects that let pop up a small box with the source. I posted this idea already to the programmers, without any reaction that someone is improving this. 92.229.63.236 (talk) 16:12, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Here is an alternative which can be implemented as a template (note that I have constructed this example so that the scopes of the refs overlap. This is often the case.):

{{refscope name=smith2008p7|{{refscope name=footnoteXYZ|This is a sentence to which both refs apply.<ref name=footnoteXYZ>This is footnote XYZ.</ref>}} This is sentence to which only smith2008p7 applies.<ref name=smith2008p7>Smith (2008), p. 7.</ref>}}

The template {{Refscope}} might generate HTML similar to the following:

<span class="refscope" id="smith2008p7"><span class="refscope" id="footnoteXYZ">This is a sentence to which both refs apply.<ref name=footnoteXYZ>This is footnote XYZ.</ref></span> This is sentence to which only smith2008p7 applies.<ref name=smith2008p7>Smith (2008), p. 7.</ref></span>

(I think I got that straight -- I'm a lousy enough proofreader that I might have screwed it up.) Mouseover effects, etc. could be applied to span class "refscope" via MediaWiki:Monobook.css and/or via [[User:<username>/monobook.css]]. Personally, I think that there is very little chance of such a template being used widely and a pretty good chance that it would be misapplied much of the time where it is used. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] uh-oh

I was rewriting (clarifying?) the text at "separating references and explanatory notes", and I'm noticing that the references it produces appear the END of this document. Help! Agradman ^talk/_contribs 04:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at it quickly while running through my watchlist items, I'd say that you should have dummied up the rendering with some variation of {{ref}} and {{note}}. Using the <Ref> mechansim mixed the refs which you intended to render in your example in with the refs for the article in which your example appears. I'm bypassing this for now, but I may get back to it later today. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:01, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Would it be overkill if we were to implement the content on another page and then transclude it here? Agradman ^talk/_contribs 00:12, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

I've redone the rendered example. It seems to be working as intended now. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Missing group parameter?

Shouldn't the line

Claim #5{{#tag:ref|Claim #5 explained.<ref>Nested reference for explanation of claim #5.</ref>}}

contain a group parameter somewhere? Rubenescio (talk) 12:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That looks like my error. I've fixed it. I'm presently traveling and checking WP from internet cafes. My participation will be spotty for the next several weeks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] can anyone help me with a small problem?

I'm having a bit of a problem with a footnote on the Paddy Bradley article and would be grateful if someone could help me out.

The problem is with Note A, which I have used twice in the body of the article. One small problem which I can't seem to fix.... the second link to Note A (i.e. the link in the "Club" section directs you to the correct footnote at the bottom, but when you click on the "^" symbol beside the note it doesn't redirect you back to the Club paragraph...only to the initial link to Note A.

Any suggestions? Derry Boi (talk) 11:54, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

I have applied a fix. It may or may not be exactly what you had in mind, but you should be able to see how to change it if changes are needed. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:24, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Derry Boi (talk) 11:40, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Absolute Astronomy citations

Has anyone else noticed wikipedia articles citing to absoluteastronomy.com and the cited article turns out to be directly copied from the citing article? For instance, the wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goof cited to http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Goof#encyclopedia which was itself a copy of the wikipedia article. Nightkey (talk) 15:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks, specifically Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Abc#Absolute Astronomy. There are quite a few links to that site,[2] but only a few actually used in articles. Perhaps it is time for a bot to start tagging mirror links. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:33, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Another footnote offender is wapedia.mobi Nightkey (talk)

[edit] cite.php update

The cite software has been updated to define named references within the reference list:

 This is a reference.<ref name="refname1"/>  <references> <ref name="refname1">content</ref> </references> 

This is a reference.^[1]

1. ^ content

{{Reflist}} has been updated with |refs=

 This is reference 1.<ref name="refname1"/> This is reference 2.<ref name="refname2"/> This is reference 3.<ref name="refname3"/>  {{reflist| refs= <ref name="refname1">content1</ref> <ref name="refname2">content2</ref> <ref name="refname3">content3</ref> }} 

This is reference 1.^[1] This is reference 2.^[2] This is reference 3.^[3]

The error messages are being worked out at Help:Cite errors. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm calling these "list-defined references" unless someone comes up with a better name. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 14:27, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Hallelujah! I remember the idea behind this being talked about back in June, it's great to see it actually come about. Woohoo! "list defined references" sounds liek a fine name to me, by the way.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 14:49, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant! You'll want a hyphen between "list" and "defined" though. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 15:11, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Nag, nag, nag. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of error messages, can anyone figure out why I'm getting one at Taner Akcam? Rd232 ^talk 19:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Check <ref name="omroep2">— there is another ref stuck on it without a name. I just converted Arthur Rudolph as a sample since it used groups. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:39, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Rd232 ^talk 19:43, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I converted Anne Dallas Dudley as another example to use. Kaldari (talk) 23:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 65#Footnotes update. I think it is possible to stuff all of this in the citation templates. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 02:18, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

By the by, I've updated Help:Footnotes#List-defined references as well as WP:Footnotes. Rd232 ^talk 12:36, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I created a shortcut WP:LDR and added it to the sectionSPhilbrickT

See {{r}}, a template to combine the inline cite names. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Ugh. Anomie⚔ 22:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And {{sfn}}, a similar template for shortened footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Help:Footnotes

Propose that the non-guideline portions of Wikipedia:Footnotes be moved to Help:Footnotes.

Some background on the Help namespace. Originally, Help pages were written at Meta and transcluded through templates to each version of Wikipedia. Each Wikipedia would then add on bits specific to that implementation. The Meta Help pages were never updated, and each implementation of Wikipedia has diverged due to differences in CSS, JS, MediaWiki messages and templates. A year or so ago, we scrapped the Meta updates and began our own implementation of Help pages.

Meanwhile, we have a lot of duplication and a lot of differences between Wikipedia:Footnotes and Help:Footnotes. It appears to me that much of the Wikipedia page is not about guidelines, but about how-to, and that belongs on the Help page. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The opposite move makes more sense to me (i.e. redirect the help page here) - in what situation would one want to know about the technical usages of footnotes without the guidelines of how and where to use them? Seems to me that at the same time as we are explaining the tags, we should provide the formatting information as well. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:34, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

This page is about one specific method of crafting footnotes that uses cite.php. The few guidelines here such as style and size and display are universal and should be at Wikipedia:Citing sources; for example, they also apply to Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing. I suspect that part of the confusion is the use of footnotes as a term to refer to a specific technical implementation. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:39, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ref name (again...)

I've been ignoring this, I suppose in the hope that it would just cease to exist, but what the hell is up with "ref name" anyway? Is this one of those things that was created specifically by Wikipedians who didn't know what they were doing, like the whole category system? Does any actual, usable, academic style of referencing use footnotes like that? What are they for? Things that are only one page? Webpages? I suppose it figures that that is the type of stuff that passes for a good reference on Wikipedia. What about actual books? It has been mentioned before, but they are totally useless for books, even though people try to use them anyway. I don't want to see a footnote "2zf". That doesn't tell me anything, about the reference, about where I am in the footnotes, or about where the footnote is on the page. It doesn't make any sense and we should kill this before it spreads any further. Adam Bishop (talk) 02:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I may be misunderstanding what you are asking, but using <ref name="blah"> allows an editor to reuse a reference. Like done in this article. That way you don't have to type out the ref multiple times.--Rockfang (talk) 04:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I know what it does, but the result is nonsensical. Even in that article, you have 7, 8, two 6s in a row, 9, 10, 11, and back to 3. Huh? This is completely missing the point of a footnote. The idea is not that a piece of information is note 2 and we can reference it again later, it's that the information is sequentially note 2 the first time, and if it needs to be referenced 10 notes later it is now in footnote 12, not footnote 2 again. Summit, Wisconsin does not suffer too much because it's very short, but anything longer than that becomes impossible to follow. Does that make sense? If you need to reuse a reference, why not just type it again in a different note? Or copy and paste if you can't handle typing it again...it's on a computer after all. Or use "ibid" or something that is actually a standard reference, not whatever this is. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If you're asking whether anyone else uses numbers as a way of referring to references that are collected at the end, then yes they do. This form of endnote is a common style in some academic journals, including the high profile journal Science. Dragons flight (talk) 06:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean Science uses endnotes (which is fine; that's really what I mean here, not footnotes), or that it uses this strange system of jumping back and forth between numbers? Adam Bishop (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Both. Science uses endnotes with the possibility of repeats that appear in essentially the same fashion that our content will render. Dragons flight (talk) 09:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you have an example of that? (Possibly online? I can see back issues up to 2004) Adam Bishop (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

See [3]. The frequency of repetitions is less than I've seen on many wiki pages, but the same principle is there. Dragons flight (talk) 00:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...very odd. Is this a standard form of referencing for scientific literature, or is peculiar to Science itself? (And why does this necessarily mean it should be adopted on Wikipedia? Maybe it would work for Wikipedia's science articles, but for, say, a history article, why shouldn't we use a standard history referencing system?) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly not universal, but it is a common approach in scientific literature. As to the question of what Wikipedia "should" do, I don't know. I will say however that I have a general preference for moving towards more standardization in referencing rather than less. We already have so many allowed styles that it can be confusing for editors. Dragons flight (talk) 02:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Reply to Adam: I think I understand you better now. With regards to not using ibid, my thinking is that it should not be used. Consider the possibility of one editor cites a source 3 times in a row with 1 normal listing and two ibid uses. What if a different editor comes along and cites a source between the two ibids and doesn't update the 2nd ibid. That could potentially cause a discrepancy with the references. I do understand your logic of having them in order, and I think that this could be useful possibly in shorter articles, but in longer articles like Barack Obama, it would make the ref section even longer and I think this would be a bad thing.--Rockfang (talk) 07:09, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, we don't have to use ibid, we can just repeat the reference, even it does appear twice in a row. (I do this frequently, assuming that, like you, people don't want to see "ibid" on Wikipedia.) Adam Bishop (talk) 07:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I've only just heard of {{Rp}} and {{R}} (in the section above!), but that seems to fit what you're after to some extent, no? Rd232 ^talk 08:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Footnote#Style: "Do not use ibid., Id., or similar abbreviations in footnotes." ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:56, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with "ibid" could be solved if people just paid attention to what they're doing, but that's not really what I'm concerned about; Rp and R don't help, they do the same thing I'm complaining about, put more than one reference into one note. What's the problem with a longer reference section? Adam Bishop (talk) 21:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

A number of things, including maintainability, readability, page size, and not giving a misleading impression of how many sources are used. What do you have against merged references? Rd232 ^talk 09:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well as I've already mentioned, they don't work for books, and they don't give any useful information about the reference. Each reference should be distinct, even if it is from the same source. They are misleading, because (for example) note 2 does not follow note 10. That should be note 11, obviously. Most importantly, I suppose, is that it is impossible to know how many "note 2"s you have read, especially if there are 5 or 6 or more. Do you expect the reader to keep track of that, so they will know to click back from note 2g instead of 2e? If this is supposed to make references easier to use, then it is a massive failure on that account alone. Also, apparently aside from limited use in scientific literature, no real style of referencing does anything like this. Using a real system is easier to maintain and read, doesn't affect page size in any meaningful way (why does that matter, anyway?), and actually gives a better impression of the sources used. Of course, there are many different styles of referencing and they aren't all compatible, but they are all better than this. Anyone who has written even just a high school essay should know that. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

With respect, this is a "real system" for scientists, and it is the idea of fully repeating every reference that is unreal. From my point of view doing that would be worse and give a misleading impression that more reference works were consulted than would actually be the case. See my comments below. Dragons flight (talk) 14:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Dragons flight. In addition, a reader does not need to keep track of how many times a reference is used, the a,b,c, ... in the reflist does that. There is no functional reason for the footnote numbers to be in order in the text (the only reason appears to be historical usage), clicking on any given number takes the reader to the reference. This is a "real system". I use references all day both academic and legal, both modern and 19th century, both paper and electronic. This works better than the unlinked (Bower 2007 p. 37) method, better than the op. cit. method, and better than many other methods, when used properly. Repeating the full citation would appear to be almost ludicrous. Note that is a number of different pages are to be pinpoint referenced in a work, the work can be listed in full under /* Sources */ and the individual pinpoint page cites can be in a short form. A number of articles do this. Similarly if only two pages from different sections the same work are used there can be two separate footnotes, clearly showing the section name and the page number. See for example the citations to Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek onder redactie in the Jacob van Heeckeren tot Enghuizen article. One page is used five times and the other only once. --Bejnar (talk) 16:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Adam that it was a mistake to present references in this way when the refname feature was introduced. It would be bettter, I think, to adhere to the formatting style that predominates in most published matter (ie. footnotes numbered sequentially in order). However, it is easily avoided by simply not using the refname feature and just manually repeating references. The relevant guidelines address the issue by neither encouraging or discouraging the use of the refname feature for repeated references. [Occasionally one must revert an AWB user since refname is included in its general fixes. It would probably be simple enough to get it removed, which would be a good start if one doesn't like the method.] Christopher Parham (talk) 13:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

"Most published matter"? That would be a hard point to prove. I could certainly bury you in libraries worth of scientific works that use either this style or the Harvard style (i.e. references appear in text as statements like "(Smith 1967, p. 34)"). In either case the full details of the actual reference work appears only once at the end. You advocate manually repeating references. For me that is ugly, unnecessary, and at some level just viscerally wrong. Don't take that as a personal insult. I find the divergent opinions here somewhat fascinating. It is just that I can't imagine anyone trained in scientific publishing advocating that, because duplicate full copies of every repeated reference just isn't done anywhere in scientific publishing. History, literature, and law have different conventions than science and engineering, and I think it is hard for people on either side of that divide to be accepting of the conventions of people on the other side. I don't know that there is any easy way to bridge this gap, and I'm certain that not everyone can be satisfied by any single system. (Of course my personal preference is Harvard style referencing, so I am rarely satisfied anyway.  ;-) Dragons flight (talk) 14:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't advocate manually repeating references but rather having the refname feature present material as if I were, rather than consolidating references. I stand by my contention that sequential numbering is the norm across most published matter; "scientific works" though filling libraries make up a small fraction of all published material. This is especially true among "popular" works, which are probably the best proxy for what Wikipedia's general interest audience would be expecting. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:50, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, apparently I have been unclear...I don't mean including the full reference every time; that would, of course, be ridiculous, and no style does that, as far as I know. What I mean is, the reference can be "Smith, 1967, pg. 34", in (for example) note 2, and if you had another reference on the same page in note 12, note 12 would repeat "Smith, 1967, pg. 34". Since ibid is apparently forbidden here, that reference would be repeated even if it was note 3. (The full citation, at least in the style I use, which I think is APA or APA-esque, is used the first time something is cited, and then the shortened version thereafter.) I hope that makes more sense! I think we actually agree. For an example of what I'm talking about, see William of Tyre, which is mostly written and referenced by me (and ignore any irregularities in the references that I haven't fixed yet). Adam Bishop (talk) 16:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Then you need to take a look at shortened footnotes WP:CITESHORT, which is not discussed on the guidelines page as it is a different reference style. This is part of the problem with this page being titled "Footnotes", as it only applies to the system that directly uses cite.php. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:55, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• Adam Bishop says they don't work for books, and they don't give any useful information about the reference. I have seen plenty of articles where ref name works for books and provides pinpoint citation information. (See my reference above.) What ref name ought not to be used for is as a substitute for pinpoint citation information. If the same book or long article is cited multiple times in an article, it should be listed as a /* Source */ in the bibliography section. A short form of footnote can then be used for separate notes in the /* Notes */ field. If the same "page", or in the appropriate case "section" or natural group of pages, is used multiple times then ref name may be used advantageously, otherwise, the editor should provide the pinpoint citation information in short form in separate notes. The problem is not with the tool. --Bejnar (talk) 16:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Shortened footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] List-defined references and error messages

Now that we have the list-defined references, some new use cases have possibly arisen which unfortunately don't play nice with how some refernces are picked up and have error messages are displayed. One such use case is have a central page of references for articles within a certain topic where they commonly reuse the same refernces for example TV Characters within a series may use episode based cites, This method can be archived by truncating a page within the references tags. Unfortunately this causes errors to display which is unfortunate because this would be a excellent use case for this new feature since it's something people have suggested before, For a example of what I'm talking about I have created a example: User:Peachey88/Sandbox/022 for the references and User:Peachey88/Sandbox/023 as the mock article. Could we possibly work something out so we can archive this? Peachey88 ^{(Talk Page · Contribs)} 07:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Addressing the specific errors: User:Peachey88/Sandbox/022 needs a {{reflist}}, an easy fix. Sandbox/02 defines reference "abcd", and is then transcluded into User:Peachey88/Sandbox/023 where it is not used, thus the error— you can't define a reference and not use it.

BTW: clicking on the Cite error message takes you directly to the section in Help:Cite errors for troubleshooting the problem. I have more work to do there.

As you can quickly tell, the current cite.php won't let you do what you are really trying to do. You can't create a page with a bunch of cites and use them as needed on other pages— you have to use every cite or you get "Cite error: <ref> tag with name "$1" defined in <references> is not used in prior text." The discussion on bugzilla that lead to the update specifically asked for this to ensure that all defined cites are actually used. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:53, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion re whether to permit use of all-numeric YYYY-MM-DD format in footnotes

FYI -- there is a discussion at [4] as to whether or not to allow the use of the all-numeric YYYY-MM-DD format in footnotes/references.

I'm raising the point here in the event that you would like to follow it or join in. Thanks.--Epeefleche (talk) 07:30, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

• Update: The discussion is now a RFC at Wikipedia:Mosnum/proposal_on_YYYY-MM-DD_numerical_dates. -- Alarics (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Problem with the #tag trick

I can't make the #tag trick described on the project page work. Here's what I'm doing:

• The ref following this is named "Foo2005" <ref name="Foo2005">This is the body of a ref namedFoo2005</ref>
• This uses #tag to generate a ref named Ran1912 inside a ref named Foo2005{{#tag:ref|J. Random, 1912. Cited in <ref name="Foo2005" />|name=Ran1912}}

Here's the results:

• The ref following this is named "Foo2005" ^[1]
• this uses #tag to generate a ref named Ran1912^[2]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} This is the body of a ref named Foo2005
2. ^ J. Random, 1912. Cited in ^[1]

Is this a bug or a misunderstanding on my part? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Two remarks: (1) mistyping of "Foo2005" or "Foo25" — (2) the {{#tag:ref|...}} will make the outside <ref>, not the inside. -- Codicorumus  « msg 09:57, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for picking up my bad proofreading. I've fixed that mistyping in the above. and if now works as intended. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:57, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MOS:PAIC?

In a recent edit, someone added "See also: MOS:PAIC" to the section on ref tags and punctuation. Does anyone else find MOS:PAIC to be misleading and inappropriately prescriptive? Not that that doesn't describe much of the MOS in general. Anomie⚔ 20:14, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

It is the job of a style manual to be prescriptive. In this case, though, the prescription was on this page at WP:REFPUNCT rather than at MOS:PAIC, so I've undone the edit. Shreevatsa (talk) 21:35, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

MOSPAIC is wrong; the way the MOS pages aren't synced is eternally frustrating. But there's another issue here: when and how did Nature ref punctuation creep back into this page? The last discussions I participated in did not favor that inclusion. Can anyone point me to a section in talk archives explaining how that worked its way back into this page? Wiki has an in-house style, and the last I knew, the Nature style was rejected. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I completely share your frustration with MOS - and have been known to wonder aloud why we think having a Manual of Style anyone can edit is anything other than barking mad. How indeed in these circumstances can MOSPAIC, or any other part of MOS be "wrong". There is no requirement for consistency, and no few examples of the reverse. Not sure about the Nature thing. Ben MacDui 19:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe the current wording, where the Nature system is described as acceptable but not most common, was the result of just the series of conversations you are talking about. I refer to those taking place between roughly around the turn of 2007-2008. It was less popular but not completely rejected. As far as I know, the current wording has been in place since that discussion. I support it as it stands; moving punctuation from before a period to after it does not improve Wikipedia for our readers, who have no plausible basis for caring about this issue. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll take your word for it (partly because I don't have time to look it up :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:55, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, MOS:PAIC does not appear to contradict this guideline, unless someone has changed it just now. "Citations are generally place after the punctuation" is true and consistent with this page, which also has information about another acceptable (but less common) style. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:49, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ref tags and punctuation

The section Ref tags and punctuation misses the point when it makes the footnote-before-or-after-punctuation a question of style: The actual meaning changes depending with the before/after choice. In the latter case the footnote refers to the entire sentence (or, on the outside, an unusually independent clause); in the former, the footnote refers to the last word, last few words, or the last clause. Consider

Examples of planets include earth, mars, and jupiter[1].

Examples of planets include earth, mars, and jupiter.[1]

The first makes [1] refer to jupiter alone, e.g. as a source for the fact that jupiter is a planet. The second makes [1] refer to the entire sentence, e.g. as a source for the fact that earth, mars, and jupiter are all planets.

I strongly encourage a change of the current guideline to reflect the above. Not only is this the logical way to do it, but this is also the only way I can recall having seen in a styleguide previous to WP. 94.220.249.30 (talk) 19:01, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In practice it doesn't work that way because when you see a footnote you have no idea whether it adheres to the style guide or not; so even if you change the guide as you suggest, when "blah blah.[1]" appears in Wikipedia there's no way to know exactly what [1] covers without consulting the source yourself. Logical systems work well for publications with a coherent editing process, but not for Wikipedia. Systems where information is conveyed by punctuation placement are not useful in a world where most punctuation is just placed according to some other rule (or randomly) and there's no way to tell what's deliberate and what is accidental - it's a bit like firefighters trying to communicate with smoke signals. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Nested references with "name"

Is it possible to reuse a nested reference like a normal reference by giving it a "name" parameter. {{#tag:ref|Claim #5 explained.<ref>Nested reference for explanation of claim #5.</ref>|group="nb" name="some-name"}} did not work here. bamse (talk) 23:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. I found my mistake. bamse (talk) 16:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)