Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 3

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Footnotes: ref-tag

Partially copied from the MOS -- Ec5618 02:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Recently, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason has been working on a new software footnote system.

There may still be some bugs to be worked out, so it can't yet replace all other styles of footnoting. And since there doesn't appear to be a page dedicated to this footnote style, I'm not sure where to post. I'm trying to find a way/place to generate discussion. -- Ec5618 02:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That system, currently minimally described at meta:Cite/Cite.php, is looking pretty darn good. I've been using it to good effect. I suggest that we restructure this to turn the sections describing {{ref}}/{{note}} into level-3 sections, all within a single level-2 section, then add—probably ahead of that, because I think it is a preferred method—another level-2 section in which to start writing about <ref> -- Jmabel | Talk 04:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I'll have a go at this in a day or two. I don't see much reason to use footnotes3 anymore, since this new system has none of the downsides of footnotes3 (although there might of course be the odd bug or two). We need to remedy this quick. I'm tired of having to refer to the user-unfriendly m:Cite/Cite.php, and frankly, I'm a bit concerned some people who don't know much about this system will pointlessly expend their energy "fixing" the footnotes. I've already had to revert one edit that switched back to footnotes3. Johnleemk | Talk 13:49, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Just politely explain to them what we're trying to do. I'll back you up if you get reverted. Any chance of a conversion of MDAC? - Ta bu shi da yu 13:49, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Good. The only bug/downside I can think of at the moment is that it's not possible to include a reference from within an image, or even image description. Check the code:

[[Image:Mergefrom.gif|Image description including reference <ref>There's an image.</ref>]], which produces

I'm not sure when this can be fixed, as even the developer hinted that it was beyond his control at this point: Apparently MediaWiki is just wired this way. (Oddly the reference does appear in the references section. -- Ec5618 14:05, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

It is odd that images behaved OK when I tested for image note sequencing on Avar's test site. (SEWilco 16:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC))

For the record, I would hug Avar if I ever met him for making this footnoting system! I've come up with an idea on how to make {{ref}} and {{note}} backwards compatible, but it would require a code enhancement. See User talk:Ta bu shi da yu/footnote-idea. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Is there any news on this topic? -- Ec5618 11:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency

Wikipedia:Good_article states that footnotes are recommended; here, it is stated that they're not even specifically preferred. (Personally, I think footnotes are a very poor idea. Look at the Britannica for example, there are very, very, very few footnotes: an encyclopedia is not a high-school essay; or at least, shouldn't be.) But either way, consistency would be nice. Bill 11:54, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed " (footnotes are recommended)" from Wikipedia:Good articles

This is in line with Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Climate change dispute 2 (ArbCom case closed 23 December 2005) --Francis Schonken 12:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Is your disagreement with footnotes or inline citations? Inline citations are needed so that Wikipedia can demonstrate the accuracy of the information in its articles. It is a consequence of the 'anyone can edit' principle. Britannica can get away with not citing its sources because editing is possible only by appointed (and it is assumed, qualified) people. 195.8.75.143 13:54, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes aren't specifically preferred, but keep in mind that editors might need to use them in case specific information can't be properly added to an article without distracting from the main flow of the text. It sometimes seems like a better solution. --Michiel Sikma 07:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Meta cite

I'm going to rewrite the how-to part of this page to meta-cite over the next few days. There was broad agreement above to do this. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:22, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Please do so on a separate page, e.g. Wikipedia:Footnotes/Cite.php

Question: meta:Cite.php was not clear to me whether inline numbered external links are compatible with this system (and if so: how?)

Anyhow, I'd avoid HTML-like tags - can this system be implemented by something that looks a bit more familiar in wiki-surrounding, e.g. {{cite|...}} instead of the <ref>...</ref> type of stuff? --Francis Schonken 16:42, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Not a coder. Let's see if numbered links [1] work with this [2] system. Summary? Better than they work with ref-note, but worse than you would hope.

Better? if both start numbering from "1" (which they apparently do) this is not really an improvement... Usability near to zero, because it makes the presupposition that people who read the encyclopedia immediately remark the difference in size of the numbers between square brackets (and that they are also pre-enlightenend what this difference in size signifies)... --Francis Schonken 17:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like the pipe to a letter refrence is wonky right now. Hold on. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

On that note, however, I'll talk to people to see if changing the "ref" template to use this format could be done. I think it can, but I think that it would be a bit too bold for me to try to impliment that myself. I really do believe the current footnote style has been badly depreciated, and that should go back up. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be on a separate page. This article isn't called "ref/note templates" or anything of the sort; it's about Wikipedia footnotes, so it should describe the currently preferred footnote method. Also, calling the page "Cite.php" is really obscure, and it makes a thoroughly unimportant implementation detail (the name of the PHP file that produces this functionality) part of a guideline; that's silly. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 16:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Take the page name you want, but not on this page. wikipedia:footnote6 or wikipedia:Footnotes/Temp or whatever you like ("e.g." above meant that I only gave an example of what a possible pagename could have been)

ref/note and their label variants can be used on the same wikipedia page. There's nothing that says they can be used on the same page with the cite.php tags.

Avoid confusion, please! --Francis Schonken 17:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Footnotes/Temp now contains the edits introducing the new system. --Francis Schonken 17:31, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Let's be clear however - every time an article is made with a plain vanilla ref-note format, god kills a kitten. The longer we wait to get rid of all mention of plain vanilla ref-note style, the more dead kittens are piling up. Leave it there for Harvard, but the tags are just better than ref-note. The guideline - hell, the policy "Don't use ref-note, use ref-refrences unless there is a really compelling reason" would pass with flying colors. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not about "better" or "worse" (I also think, on first sight, I like the new system better)

It's about Wikipedia:Footnotes#Helping editors unfamiliar with footnote templates (which is a "subst:" inserted commentary on many pages now, and not OK for referring to the new system)

and about Wikipedia:Footnotes#Design goals (not the "design goals" for the new system)

and about Wikipedia:Footnotes#Migration strategy (not the "migration strategy" for the new system - is there already any migration strategy for the new system? If yes, maybe start with proposing it)

and about Wikipedia:Footnotes#How does it work? - this is not how cite.php works

and about Wikipedia:Footnotes#Converting citation styles this is the REALLY tough one, maybe read the ArbCom case before entering this minefield

and about Wikipedia:Footnotes#Disadvantages and future improvements - well some of these improvement are no longer "future" in the cite.php system, are they? This should be sorted out and an adequate description of remaining (new?) future improvement should be given...

and the WP:FN3 shortcut which is *only* the ref/label system (too long a history to tell)

please don't go live with a new how-to description without adequate examples being visible on the page

etc... --Francis Schonken 17:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'm rewriting the page at temp basically from scratch to refer only to ref-refrences and harvard. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

I moved the "footnotes" page back to wikipedia:footnote3 (where it historically comes from), and made WP:FN a disambig page, pointing to "FN3" and the temp page. That's no more than a temporary solution too, maybe the best of several bad solution, I hope.

Good idea for what you want to make of the temp page! --Francis Schonken 18:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Paragraphs and Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr., a featured article

ref-note and Harvard are used somwhat heavily in this featured article. Please let us know when there is an official policy change. But for the moment, I have a question about paragraphs in footnotes. I can't find anywhere that this issue is addressed. Is there a way to have paragraph breaks in footnotes? Tom Haws 18:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Try either <br> or (on a new line:) #:

The second solution makes a slightly deeper indent, so unless starting a sublist (using ## for a numbered list or #* for a bulleted list) <br> is usually best.

Of course, don't leave open (blank) lines, while that breaks the footnote numbering --Francis Schonken 18:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That did it. Thanks. Tom Haws 19:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Numbering of external links and footnotes

I'm sure this issue has been addressed, but is there a plan to resolve the numbering of external links and footnotes when they are both in the same article? A consideration of converting the external links into footnotes isn't a practical solution, especially in articles with volatile subjects and frequent edits from different camps. Andrew73 13:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Convert to m:Cite. It's documented on one of the pages disambiguated by WP:FN. Johnleemk | Talk 14:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

New page is ready

I believe that Wikipedia:Footnotes/Temp, which describes the new system built into MediaWiki, is now ready to become the main footnotes page. Any objections? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 07:35, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I still added a "helping other editors" section, hope that's OK too. Also (provisionally) updated help:footnotes. As far as I can see Rspeer can proceed as proposed. --Francis Schonken 09:10, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'm doing it. I'm treating this as a large edit to the Wikipedia:Footnotes page instead of a move. I don't think the distinction is very important, and I can't do a complicated move like that without being an admin. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

GFDL note

Some edits to this page were made in a temporary version by User:Hipocrite, User:Francis Schonken, and User:Rspeer. See the contribution history of the temp page. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 17:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Multiple-link style difference from Meta

I've noticed that en:Wikipedia has implemented a style difference from the apparent default described in m:Cite/Cite.php: multiple links to the same note have backlinks that are lettered (e.g., a, b, c…) rather than sub-numbered (e.g, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3…). This makes more sense to me, in that the only place the sub-numbers show up is in the "references" text that already displays the main note number, making its repetition in the backlinks redundant. Also, the use of letters is less likely to confuse readers, as they are clearly distinct from the numbering.

I would like to implement this Wikipedia style tweak for en:Wikiquote, but I can't find the customization that makes this change. I didn't notice a relevant specification in either MediaWiki:Common.css or MediaWiki:Monobook.css, and the text at m:Cite/Cite.php makes me think it might be a developer setting (possibly cite_references_link_many_format_backlink_labels). Could someone clue me in on how to do this? Thanks. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 05:02, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Superscripts

I've searched Bugzilla for a bug report about superscripts increasing the line height. I couldn't find one, but I'm not familiar with that site. I suspect, though, the problem is that superscripts (and subscripts) would have to be much smaller than they are in order to maintain the same line height, but this would render numbers unreadable on small monitors. The only solution appears to be to increase the line height or wait until we've all got 20" monitors. Alan Pascoe 16:33, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Some browsers allow you to use your own style sheet to override the author's settings (I use Opera 8.51). I've experimented with some CSS and managed to improve the line spacing, but the superscripts are rather faint. I entered this into my stylesheet:

sup {
  font-size: 70% ;
  vertical-align: 30% ;
}

sub {
  font-size: 70% ;
  vertical-align: -10% ;
}

This was about the best I could do with my monitor, which is a less-than-sharp 15" CRT. With a large LCD it might be possible to do better Alan Pascoe 22:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

I've just noticed that another user had already posted a similar fix: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Superscripts and line spacing. The suggestion here though was to use the Wikipedia user style sheet, monobook.css, which is better because it will work for all browsers and apply only to the Wikipedia site. 212.126.146.10 16:13, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

This fix is better also because it maintains the original size of the superscript text. Alan Pascoe 14:02, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

As an aside, it also works with subscripts, which cause a similar problem in chemical formulae, e.g. Aniline. Use the same CSS, except change the selector from sup to sub, and put a negative sign in front of the value of the bottom property. Alan Pascoe 17:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

What to do with separate footnotes and references

It has been my stylistic approach to separate references and footnotes into two sections. For examples, see Jello Biafra, Grunge music, or Fight Club. Under Footnote3, this worked perfectly fine. However, I'm not sure how it will work out under this new format. It may work out well if Footnote3 is still available to use separately, but I'm not entirely sure if that will work. -- LGagnon 23:22, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

There's no reason you can't do this. It's just that doing it would sort of defeat the purpose, since the new system allows quick maintenance of footnotes and addition of new sources. But still, there's no reason you can't do it. Just do <ref>Foo, p. 79.</ref> instead of <ref>Foo, Bar (2000). ''Bleh'', p. 79. FUBAR Publishers. ISBN 999888776.</ref>. Johnleemk | Talk 01:10, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't mean the page numbers, though that would be an issue too. I meant the separate "Notes" and "References" sections that appear in those articles. What would result is that they would be integrated, which in my opinion would be stylistically ugly. -- LGagnon 01:20, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

What's the problem? Just do this: ==Notes== <references/> ==References== *Foo, Bar (2000). ''Bleh''. FUBAR Publishers. ISBN 999888776. Johnleemk | Talk 03:32, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the citation links are needed for both the Notes and Reference sections. Each note and reference refers to a specific passage or sentence, and both need that pointed out in some way. Thus, it would be useful if, like in Footnote3, Citephp included a second method of denoting footnotes so that footnotes could appear in separate sections instead of all in the same one. The main problem here is, as far as I can tell, a technical problem that the programmers didn't consider when they created Citephp. And don't get me wrong; I appreciate their work. I'm just concerned as to how the new restrictions inherant in Citephp will effect the structure of articles. -- LGagnon 03:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Eh? I don't quite get it. User:Johnleemk/mockup shows the implementation of my proposal at the top, and shows the old way of doing footnotes at the bottom. (At least, that was how I did things with {{ref}}.) Johnleemk | Talk 15:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I also don't really get what remaining problem LGagnon precisely alludes to. Maybe the example below might clarify (sorry for other <ref> notes on this page also showing up in the "Notes" list below, but I think you get the idea of what I mean):

---

Foo was invented by Nescio Nomen in the 17th century.

A century later, Foo was refined by Negidius Numerius Template:Ref harvard.

It was also Negidius Numerius who established that N. Nomen was the original inventor of Foo Template:Ref harvard.

References

• ^{^ ^^} Baby Blue, Negidius Numerius' reinvention of Foo, Wikidemia Press, 2003, ISBN 000000000000
• C. Coda, An overview of the publications on Foo, Wackademia journal, October 2004 issue, p. 12-13

---

Here's the edit:

---

'''Foo''' was invented by Nescio Nomen<ref>Not to be confounded with his distant nephew Nexio Nomen, see: Adam Adams, ''The Nomen Dynasty in Eastern Europe'', Academia Press, 1903, p. 227, footnote 7</ref> in the 17th century.

A century later, Foo was refined by Negidius Numerius {{ref_harvard|Blue1|Blue 2003|none}}.

It was also Negidius Numerius who established that N. Nomen was the original inventor of Foo {{ref_harvard|Blue1|Blue 2003, p. 17-18|^^}}.

===Notes===
<references/>

===References===
*{{note_label|Blue1|Blue 2003|none}}{{note_label|Blue1|Blue 2003, p. 17-18|^^}} Baby Blue, ''Negidius Numerius' reinvention of Foo'', Wikidemia Press, 2003, ISBN 000000000000
*C. Coda, ''An overview of the publications on Foo'', Wackademia journal, October 2004 issue, p. 12-13

---

Or was this still not what you meant? --Francis Schonken 15:19, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

This may work, assuming that note_label isn't phased out (is it part of Footnote3? If not, will it stay?). The plans to phase out Footnote3 may cause us to have to further develop Citephp to be able to give both abilities. -- LGagnon 23:34, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Just because it's deprecated doesn't mean the templates will be deleted. Johnleemk | Talk 09:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Just rewrote intro of wikipedia:footnote3: the method for linked harvard refences explained on that page is, AFAIK, neither "deprecated" nor "phased out". That was only a matter of choice when the new "wikipedia:footnotes" guideline was written, explaining the <ref>...</ref> tags, that this new guideline would not contain on one page the details of two inherently different systems: one realised with html-tags (for numbered footnotes), another realised with wiki-templates (for harvard references): there was no need to copy-paste three quarters of the old guideline in the new one (this possibility was tried at first, but made the new guideline fairly unintelligible and messy). --Francis Schonken 12:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Good in some ways—bad in others

If you only use Harvard-style references, this system works great. But if you also use paragraph-length notes (as I often do—sometimes it's necessary to separate tangential information from the main body of the article), it creates an editing nightmare. Imagine a whole paragraph of unrelated text insert right into the middle of another paragraph! Well, I suppose there's no perfect solution. And I must admit that this is a substantial improvement over previous systems.
-,-~^R'lyehRising~-,- 13:12, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

? "If you only use Harvard-style references, this system works great": which system? Footnotes with <ref> tags, or: Footnote3/Harvard variant, or: the combination of the two as I explained above. If you mean the combination, you shouldn't have problems with what you portray, the combination is intended to separate the tagential info (in <ref> style footnotes) from harvard references, accomplished with the appropriate footnote3 system (ref_harvard/note_label combination of templates). Of course, at that time get rid of all other types of ref/note templates: replace these by the <ref>-style tags.

So, I don't see exactly what problem you want to picture, could you explain? Of course, inserting long tangentially (un)related comments is maybe not advised in any style neither in footnotes nor in harvard references. That relates to content-type guidelines/policies of wikipedia, wikipedia:footnotes is only technical how-to for realising numbered footnotes. Whether or not meandering text is a good idea for wikipedia is not covered by this technical guideline. But generally, I see no reason to promote it. --Francis Schonken 13:37, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

sometimes it's necessary to separate tangential information from the main body of the article

It is? — Omegatron 20:45, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

ease of use

Once i figgered out how to use the new system it seems quite easy to use, however I found working out how to use it (from this page) difficult. I don't deny that all the needed info is here but it is a bit confusing, especialy on the issule of multiple footnotes; for example, it needs to be clearer that it doesn't matter what text you put in the second, third etc.. ref's.

Q: On that issule, why does the software require that any text is used in second third etc.. ref's I found myself just addeding an arbitary "p" as it seemed a waste of space writing out the actual ref again.

Anyway, cheers for making a neew system, all in all I think it will work better then the varrious old ones.--JK the unwise 12:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC) (P.S: My first attemp to use it is at Left-wing politics

Just finnished February 15, 2003 anti-war protest, MAN that took some time, please no one tell me they have a bot that could have done it in 5 seconds!--JK the unwise 14:45, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnote size for when there are many

I've seen several pages with a smaller font size used for the footnotes, and personally I like the look of it. I don't know if it has been mentioned in any of the style pages, but it seems like it should be addresssed? I've seen both <div style="font-size: 90%"> or <div class="small"> followed by </div>. Шизомби 23:17, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

• One of the biggest problems with footnotes is that they tend to mess up the formatting of the article (and as usual, the typical, canned Wikipedia response is the old "somebody needs to get to the bottom of this!" ;p ). Consequently, with regard to this problem I ask: why must a footnote necessarily have to look like a footnote—that is, why must it be superscripted? To get around this, I created my own template (using the Footnote3 system) and just made it a normally-sized bracketed number—in fact, I've seen footnotes done this way on some web pages. As a result, my paragraphs remain properly formatted, and the footnotes are largely unobtrusive. My belief is that it is more important for Wikipedia article to be readable rather than to rigidly adhere to a standard that creates an eyesore for the reader. (That being said, I should note that I have been using the new system on certain articles, just to see how it works out. And my system will probably get edged out anyway, whether I like it or not. ...despair...)
  -,-~^R'lyehRising~-,- 13:43, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
  • ? Footnote3 for numbered footnotes is deprecated. Non-superscripted footnote numbers are even more confusing with automatically numbered external html links, than what I commented on above.
    Further, I thought Schizombie was talking about footnote text (which appears below on a page), not about the reference numbers in the body of the article text. --Francis Schonken 14:00, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, I was asking about the footnote text that appears at the bottom of a page. Шизомби 20:49, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
      • In response to the original question, I have just been looking at the Cape Horn page where the references text is set to use <div style="font-size: 90%">. I think this looks good (although particularly because I'm using Firefox and a custom sans-serif font - not so good in Internet Explorer where Arial is enforced by Wikipedia), but it should use a class. Halsteadk 13:53, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

multiple references problem

i have multiple text pointing to one reference, i.e.

mytexttexttext ref name=slime moretexttexttext ref name=slime.

so the ref text from the first ref is used. the ref text from the second ref is just dummy text. but as i am always chopping up the article, i end up like this:

moretexttexttext ref name=slime mytexttexttext ref name=slime

now my references are screwed up, because it tries to use the ref from what was formerly the second reference, which is just dummy text. i now have to manually go & find the actual ref text and move it to the new first ref. this is hard work, and has happened a lot on The Illuminatus! Trilogy. is there no way to somehow flag a ref as an "anchor" ref, and the others as "child" refs pointing to the text defined in that anchor ref? Zzzzz 22:09, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

• I think a simple way to accomplish this would be for the software to use the first non-empty ref. Then, as long as you use empty references (like <ref name="slime" />) for all but one reference, the order doesn't matter. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 03:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

• • whats the process to get it fixed? Zzzzz 10:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

As a temporary workaround, repeating the same text for every ref to the same footnote can be used. This is a bit more sloppy on resources (while not using the shorter closed tag), but avoids errors when moving text around later, like this:

text...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref> text continues...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref>

Text continues further...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref>

which doesn't change the footnote text after refactoring:

Text continues further...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref>

text...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref> text continues...text...text...<ref name="repeattext">This will show up below</ref>

--Francis Schonken 13:19, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

doesnt really help if i need to edit the content of the reference... i then need to go & make the exact same edit on all the others in case i need to move them around afterwards... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zzzzz (talk • contribs)

I see. Maybe ask User:Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason if the tweak proposed by Rspeer would be hard to implement in cite.php. Or alternatively, start a bug report about it (I think at meta there's an entrance to the bugzilla application for the wikimedia software somewhere, try: m:bugzilla), or post a message at m:talk:Cite.php. --Francis Schonken 13:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

thx, i mentioned it on the cite.php talk page. Zzzzz 14:06, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Quality of writing and footnotes

I notice that editors are starting to switch to the <ref></ref> footnote system, and while it makes pages look neater once saved, it makes them very hard to check for flow of writing. If you compare this page, for example, without the footnotes and here with the footnotes, you can see how much harder it is to copy edit once the citations are inserted.

Can anything be done to make the citation stand out from the body of the text; for example, can the words inside <ref></ref> be rendered in a different font, different size, or different color? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:25, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

From my understanding of HTML and CSS, the answer to your second question is no. I suppose the various citation templates could be used instead. Another solution was used for Windows 2000, but I found it a bit unwieldy (although others may disagree). All in all, I still find this new footnoting system better than the old one. The old one when it comes to URL sources relied on the URL remaining up and not changing substantially. The new one allows us to add the information of when the page was viewed so that fact-checkers can at least try to verify matters. Johnleemk | Talk 17:48, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's an improvement on the old system, which in part is the problem, because it's likely to be more popular for that reason, so it'd be good to find a way to make it interfere less with the text flow. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 17:52, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Windows 2000 puts each footnote on a new line, which due to the way HTML and wikimarkup work, will only put a space between the end of a sentence/paragraph and the footnote. Therefore, it usually (but not always) looks sort of tidy during editing, but readers can't tell the difference. Johnleemk | Talk 18:00, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same thing here? The question, based on the links above, is what <ref> tags look like during edit, not as rendered on the displayed article. Why would Windows 2000 act differently for a ref tag in the edit window textarea, when it's not an actual tag at that point? Why wouldn't it be the case in WinXP (where I've not seen what Johnleemk seems to be describing)? Why wouldn't it be affected by different browsers and versions? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:34, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Uh...I'm talking about the article Windows 2000, not the operating system. Look at the wikimarkup for the article. Johnleemk | Talk 17:38, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, don't I feel stupid, doubly so because what you were describing was a variation of what I took some trouble to explain that I'd also done (see below). I don't know why I so thoroughly misunderstood your statement, Johnleemk, given my own attempts to do essentially the same thing. My sincere apologies! ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:30, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

All the text within the edit box appears within textarea tags on the HTML for the entire page in the browser window. However, the ref tags in the edit window don't appear as tags in the page, which means it is not possible to distinguish between the reference text and the rest of the text. Alan Pascoe 20:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Alan, sorry if I'm being dense, but are you saying it's impossible to make the refs look different when editing? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 20:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't say impossible—I'm not an expert—but the straightforward way of using CSS to change the appearance of the text within the <ref> tags doesn't appear to be available, because the tags don't appear in the markup for the whole page. You can see this by selecting 'View, Source' or similar from your browser menu bar. Alan Pascoe 22:41, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

One thing I've tried to do to make <ref> elements easier to understand and edit is to try prettyprint formatting in the edit window. I put each ref element on a separate set of lines, with just the open/close tags on 1 line each, and the material inside (which can get to paragraph length with cite tags and explanatory text) indented with 2 spaces, making the whole element visually obvious and separate from the surrounding article text, like so:

… and Mike Nelson took over the host role.
 <ref>
   ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', episode #513, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die".
   <small> Nelson had previously played assorted supporting characters.</small>
 </ref>
 A debate developed over…

However, I've seen two problems with this. First, since there is a line break between the article text and the ref element, there will be a space between the article text and the footnote in the rendered text, which some people don't like. More importantly, there seems to be a bug with the whitespace squeezing, at least with my browser configuration (Firefox 1.5.0.1 on WinXP, no CSS customization). When I did some major footnote restructuring to fix Team B's broken ref/note footnoting with now-functional ref/reference tags, the first Tom Barry citation (name="remember") interpreted the initial space as a call for a PRE tag, placing it first in the 9 footnotes and messing up the format. I experimented but couldn't get it to behave, even though all 8 of the other tags were so formatted but rendered properly. The potential for browser bugs (vs. MediaWiki bugs) spooked me, so I abandoned the strategy. But if it is a MediaWiki issue, fixing it would be a convenient way to provide visual formatting hints to set off the new ref tags. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:59, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Coloring the ref text selectively would be possible with Javascript. Wikipedia tends to be leery about implementing new Javascript, but you could try asking at MediaWiki talk:Monobook.js. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 04:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

citation location

This may be obvious, but the proper location of the citation is after the punctuation,^[1] like this.^[2] This is supported already by the examples in the page, and is further supported by the first example on this page that cites the Chicago manual of style. I don't have an explicit guideline directly from the Chicago MOS, but I have never seen footnotes in a print source formatted like this^[3]. Also, I know of at least two people who have supported this format in the past: Bishonen and Fallout boy. In the name of maintaining consistency on Wikipedia and looking professional, any objections to stating that the proper location is immediately after the punctuation? —Spangineer (háblame) 06:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

• I agree should be positioned after punctuation, but there is a editing style consideration. Some have suggested (above) placing <ref> tags on new line to aid readability whilst editing, particularly if several citations occur in sequence. One can of course run them together (after the punctuation), but this can be very difficult to follow if the citation templates extend over several lines; example:

This is well proven.<ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><ref name="C">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref> However many disagreed with this in the past.<ref name="D">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><ref name="E">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref> The solution was found in 2003.

• Placing each citation on its own line however causes a problem as to what to do with the space after the punctuation: Placing after the closing </ref> its existance is not apparent (space at the end of a line), and it can't appear at the start of the next sentance appearing on the next line (wiki-markup indents lines starting with a space). The fudge is to place citations before the punctuation, and the punctuation at the begining of the next line which highlights the continuation of the text. Hence for the example given:

This is well proven<ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

<ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

<ref name="C">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

. However many disagreed with this in the past<ref name="D">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

<ref name="E">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

. The solution was found in 2003.

• I know which one I find easer to read whilst editing. I agree (in advance) that the only purpose of wikipedia is to have a good encyclopedia to read, not have something nice to edit with, but still have a look at how much clearer the editing markup is for Epilepsy#Legal implications or look at the whole complex Lyme disease article to realise that there is a need for some help with clarity when editing (these are good articles with well verified & cited sources, but trying to copyedit read the markup is difficult). David Ruben ^Talk 14:45, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• I see the editing advantage, but the problem with that is that there will be spaces between the citations, causing the possibility of text wrapping to the next line. In my opinion, it's even more important to avoid spacing throughout to prevent that from happening, because having a random citation floating at the beginning of the next line looks even worse than having a citation like this^[1]. As you said, reading is the most important consideration. I think it makes more sense to make editors get used to skipping everything between ref tags than make the readers put up with an unconventional and ugly citation style. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 16:17, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't this work (creativity with html commentary tags):

This is well proven.<!--
  --><ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><!--
  --><ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><!--
  --><ref name="C">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>
However many disagreed with this in the past.<!--
  --><ref name="D">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><!--
  --><ref name="E">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>
The solution was found in 2003.

without the "nowiki" tags

This is well proven. However many disagreed with this in the past. The solution was found in 2003.

references section

(sorry for other references on this page showing up also:)

--Francis Schonken 01:10, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm - I agree works and even looks good whikst editing :-) Just a shame need to resort to html for what is meant to be an inherent feature of wikimedia, also I dread to think what happens when a user forgets or deletes the closing '-->' - (rest of article disappears!). David Ruben ^Talk 01:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

That's an extremely good idea. I think I'm going to use that at my most recent citation heavy short article. That's especially useful for some of pages that use alot of the templates. Personally, I like it when I can write articles like welding and only have to put a name and a page number in each reference, but sometimes that isn't possible. As for people forgetting to close the tags, I hope they notice =).

With this in mind, do you think it'd be OK to add the location guide to this page? We could even include that HTML cheat as an example of how to be editor-friendly and reader-friendly at the same time so that editors are aware of that idea. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 02:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Indenting the "arrows" that precede a footnote text even looks better in edit mode --Francis Schonken 09:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This works well, but there is a catch to remember if editing within a wikilist. See the great improvement in ease when editing Lyme disease between these 2 versions. The catch is that if one is within a list ('#' or '*'), then an additional set of <!-- --> is required to link back to any continuing sentances of text, otherwise a new line is forced - these additional tags I did not indent in the Lyme disease example.

So compare:

This is well proven.<!--
  --><ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>
However many disagreed with this in the past.<!--
  --><ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

...which gives as expected:
This is well proven. However many disagreed with this in the past.

But if the paragraph is in a list (note the addition of a '*'):

*This is well proven.<!--
  --><ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>
However many disagreed with this in the past.<!--
  --><ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

...a line-break occurs on returning from the 1st citation back to text:

• This is well proven.

However many disagreed with this in the past.

The solution, in lists, is therefore to link subsequent text AND ALSO provide the space between the punctuation and the start of the next sentance (note the space before the word 'However'):

*This is well proven.<!--
  --><ref name="A">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref><!--
--> However many disagreed with this in the past.<!--
  --><ref name="B">{{cite journal...|...|...}}</ref>

...which gives, as we seek:

• This is well proven. However many disagreed with this in the past.

I think the extra effort is well rewarded with ease of scanning through a text when editing. David Ruben ^Talk 00:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Noting reprints in footnotes?

No response at Citing Sources, so I'll try here:

What is the proper way to note the reprint of an article in a book?

Article full citation

Book full citation (reprinting Author (year))

or

Article full citation (reprinted in Book full citation)

or

Book full citation (reprinting Article full citation)

? Thanks. Esquizombi 09:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

There's no consensus on how to cite. Just as long as it's readable and contains all the pertinent information, I suppose whatever method you prefer would be best. Johnleemk | Talk 17:35, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Superscripts

Is there any way to get rid of the brackets around the superscript number? I think it looks much better without the brackets (see Saddam Hussein's article for an example), but I still want to use <ref>, not {{ref}}. Any ideas? Aucaman^Talk 02:33, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

No, but I will help you argue against them with the developer.  :-) I heard they were only there to make the clickable area bigger, but this could be done with css padding instead. I would much prefer solitary numbers. — Omegatron 03:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure what the alternative would look like, but I'm sure both versions would have their advantages and disadvantages. But it would be nice to give users options. I don't think it's a big deal. Aucaman^Talk 08:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I personally prefer the brackets, as it clearly shows that it's separate from the text. For an ongoing discussion on this topic, see Template talk:Citation needed, where people are constantly battling over this. Sections 1-4 and 6 have particularly in-depth discussions on the matter. Blackcap (talk) 17:33, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Explanation too difficult ?

• Whilst I really appreciate this new Cite:ref system, the explanation in general in wikipedia on adding references to articles is awful. There are far too many pages (historical & present) with long-winded explanations which are as much about self-justifying the need & development of a new system as actually guiding a wikinovice (who might only have just learnt to use ‘==’ for section headers and ‘~ ~ ~ ~' signatures). I accept that this is largely because there is no fixed official policy on footnotes/references, just a series of optional options.
• The current mix of options is a mess: with many articles having both in-line references[3] and the new system too, with resulting clash of numerical link values. (I suspect too that in-line references are going to prove tricky come the hardcopy Wikipedia 1.0)
• Using one of the {{cite ...}} templates can help establish some consistency of style. Yet I must confess that despite no longer being a total wikinovice, it took me several days of searching before I stumbled upon the full list of Category:Citation templates and realised that these can be included between the <ref> tags. (Wikipedia:Citing sources only on its last line mentions <ref>, which it links to Cite.php rather than this article, and only about two thirds the way down a link to Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles/Generic citations – how silly of me to miss it the first few searches I tried) .
• The original description of Cite.php was mostly about the software implementation that I still don’t quite fully understand, and the description on Wikipedia:Footnotes is too long winded. By this I mean it also describes its development, that it is not policy but only a suggestion etc - and whilst all true enough, is hardly inviting nor a simple “Idiots guide to Cite:Ref”.
• I've had a go at an alternative, simpler (I hope) description in my sandbox (see WP:Cite:Ref). My suggestion is that Wikipedia:Footnotes becomes the overall (one screen’s worth) discussion on the variety of optional footnote methods, with a link to a separate clear description of the cite:ref / citation-template use. So (with some trepidation) let me know your thoughts on my rewrite suggestion :-) David Ruben ^Talk 02:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• In order, my responses are: Yes. YES. Yes. Yes. Good work. In your example, though, I'd make the citation location consistent (after punctuation please, including commas), and also rename "References" to "Notes" and move that bulleted reference into a new "References" section. We definitely need a simple and compact basics guide to citation formatting, and this is a good place for it. Nitty gritty details can follow, but it's already hard to get people to reference stuff, so let's at least take away the excuse, "I didn't want to read a 10 page essay on the history of footnote systems on Wikipedia". —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 04:08, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks - are citation references best placed under a section call "References" rather than "Notes" or "Footnotes"? The latter 2 seem more typographical terms to describe how a citation superscripted flag links to details appearing at the bottom (foot) of a page, rather than what a reader reads as being the list of references (i.e term 'footnoes' is a typographical process vs 'references' being a reader-meaningful object). It would be simpler (less section headers) if all work used to write an article appears under the one heading (references) with <references/> tag followed by a bulleted list ("External links" then identifies for example an organisation, rather than specific information on their web site). Or have I missed a longstanding consensus wikipedia policy ? David Ruben ^Talk 17:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• Not policy, but definitely convention (see the FAs passed in the past few months). I agree with you that one heading might be simpler, but in general, notes are in a "Notes" section and they refer to references in the "References" section. See welding for an example on an article I wrote. However, in cases were each references is used only one or two times, there's no special "References" section and just a "Notes" or "References and notes" section, in which the only thing that appears is the <references/> tag. See New England Patriots for an example of that. I think the main reason that two sections are usually used is because the list format is different—references are listed alphabetically, and notes are listed by the order of their appearance in the article. It's the same principle as the writer who has both an endnotes page and a separate work cited page. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 00:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you, I was confused because in the previous system of {ref|:xxx} - {note|:xxx}, the 'ref' obvious meant 'refer' or 'reference' (it would have made more sense if the system had choosen {cite|:xxx} - {note|:xx} instead).
• Most of the medical articles I have seen, tend to have many more citation notes than comprehensive reference sources (example see Acne vulgaris with 17 citations and just 2 references). So presumably the 'norm' I should be seeing in medical articles is for a "Notes" section (with just the <references/> tag) and just occasionally "Notes & References" if there is a lone additional specific reference used as well ? David Ruben ^Talk 01:08, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• Normally people call the section "Notes and references" even if all that are in the section are notes; not sure why. Before that Acne article I had never seen an actual example of combining bulleted general references and a numbered list of notes in the same section. Again, it really depends on the style of the editor. I personally prefer print sources whenever possible, and thus usually write articles with a high citation to reference ratio (that is, I use authoratative and comprehensive sources that thoroughly describe the subject). Others prefer using many more sources (more diversity can mean better balance), and as a result normally only have a few citations per reference (often websites or periodicals, but sometimes book sources as well). For me, it makes sense to have two separate sections, for those other people, it makes sense to have just one. But in that one section, they won't actually have a separate listing of references; it'll just be numbered notes with all the citation information imbedded in the note. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 02:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

• I definitely agree with the simplified introduction to recommended footnoting. Instead of talking about "flushing out" references, however, I'd describe the use of the references tag in terms ordinary reader/editors would be more likely to understand. Example: To display the references in a list (complete with links to and from the citations), place the <references/> tag under a section heading like "References" or "Footnotes". I would also like to have an example of how to use the ref tags in a more readable form instead of crammed into the text without any visible separation, making it hard to find, let alone review and edit, these tags. (I suggest something along these lines above in #Quality of writing and footnotes.) But regardless of these 2 points, the need for a simple, straightforward intro is critical. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

• Thank you for suggested rewording that I have tried to work in and I also have tried the citation separation suggested previously on this talk page :-) David Ruben ^Talk 17:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Helping unfamiliar editors

Hi there, I've made a minor edit to the concealed message written for the benefit of unfamiliar editors, many of who will be people new to Wikipedia. Many of them will likely not understand Wiki markup sufficiently well, and be confused with [[Wikipedia:Footnotes]] in the edit interface. As the message is concealed, there will be no clickable link, and if they do not understand markup they may not be able to get here. Most people who use the net with any frequency however know what a URL is. Hope the minor change is satisfactory. I have also changed the template accordingly. regards —Encephalon 01:40, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes in image captions???

It doesn't seem to be supported. Take a look here. How does one get around this? Any ideas? Aucaman^Talk 12:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a known problem, but it's not the fault of m:Cite. It's a problem with the MediaWiki software in general. Johnleemk | Talk 15:02, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

In case anyone's wondering, I have no idea how to work around this problem. You could probably resort to the old {{ref}} system for now. Johnleemk | Talk 16:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

This could be related to bug 4723. See also an example of this bug. --Michiel Sikma 10:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

You can cite about the image caption in the passage of the text. -- Zondor 00:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

A better idea

We really need a good references system, and I'm glad this was finally written. It's got a lot of shortcomings, though. I've proposed a new syntax that puts the context of the references in the references section instead of cluttering up the article text, and some other changes, like subreferences for each referenced fact. I've written it up (with an example) here: m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php#A_different_idea. Please comment. — Omegatron 17:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Bolded arrows

I've noticed that references with more than one reference point have arrows that aren't bolded. This makes them look out of place with the rest of the arrows. On my browser, it shows up pretty different (see link for example). Maybe this could be fixed by putting the arrow with more than one reference point in <b></b> tags? --Michiel Sikma 10:30, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

<ref> tags too verbose

Overall I like the functionality the <ref> <reference> tags provide, how easy they are to insert, and how they look once rendered. I have a problem with how they affect the rest of the editing process, however. By placing the reference itself in the text, the flow of the text is disrupted, both lexically and semantically. This makes the text harder to read and edit. Most Wiki tags and templates are pithy and unobstructive enough that the user can easily read and edit the text. Clumps of these <ref> tags interfere with that.

I think a better solution would be to have a ref tag like this: <ref name="Wilson"/> paired with a reference tag like this:

== References ==

<reference name="Wilson">"My Reckless Youth," Wilson, Woodrow, Life/Times Books, New York, 2003.</reference>

This requires more keystrokes, but it leaves the text in a shape that is cleaner, more flowing and easier to read and to edit.

Above added by User:Tomcool 16:52, 27 March 2006 at top of discussion

• The above is I think wrongly marked up for the idea being suggested? As it is, it is just a rewording of the previous {{ref|xxx}} with full details given in the references section by {{note|xxx}} details. The problem with this system is the need for manual ordering of the reference section & problems of duplicate citations.
• What I think was meant by Tomcool was using in the main article just the placeholder <ref name="xxx"/> and then providing altogether in the reference section all the full citation details with <ref name="xxx"> details </ref> and still using a single <references/> to list all the references in order.
  • However this has been suggested already (this thread added to top of talk-page), and basically amounts to cite.phd taking the full details from the last, rather than the first, occasion of a <ref> tag.
• It helps to both sign ones talk-page entries and place new threads at the bottom of a talk-page rather than at the top ! I move this to the bottom of the discussion to maintain chronology next... David Ruben ^Talk 19:52, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• • Now that new thread moved to bottom of talk-page, apparent already covered - see above Wikipedia talk:Footnotes#A_better_idea :-) David Ruben ^Talk 19:59, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Font size

In practice, it seems that reference sections generated with this system are generally in a reduced font size, with something like this:

<div style="font-size: 0.85em;">
<references/>
</div>

It seems that this should be mentioned somewhere on this page. However (as can be seen in the last few main page featured articles that use this system, say), there seems to be no standard to the font size that people are using. Actually, looking through some of them, people seem to be using percentages, and I've seen everything from 85%, 90%, and 92%. Has anyone suggested a standard to this? If not, is anyone intending to do so? –Unint 02:52, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe there's no standard because people tend to reduce the size based on how lengthy the references are? If the references stretch for pages and pages, then they'd probably use 85%, but if they're just a half a page long, 90% might do. Johnleemk | Talk 06:37, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

I think I've seen as low as 75%, but IMO 85% is the best option if we're going to standardize it. 90-92% really isn't all that different from just leaving it at normal size. If we want a guideline, it should say something like the font in large notes sections is typically reduced to 85-90% of normal. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 18:42, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't arbitrarily change font sizes, please. — Omegatron 18:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Does that mean we should be trying to eliminate font size reduction in references sections altogether? Or that I should just go and change it to a percentage in the article that I took that example from? –Unint 00:33, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Omegatron, please explain what you're saying. What is "arbitrary" in your opinion? To me, reducing large notes sections to a smaller yet readable font is a great idea—it's not like we're varying font size within the prose itself; rather, we're taking an appendix type section and shrinking it so that it's easier for the reader to get to the external links. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 01:24, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

You should not be setting non-standard font sizes in articles at all. They should be changed in the site-wide style sheet, if at all. Talk about it on MediaWiki talk:Common.css; don't make it inconsistent between articles. — Omegatron 01:51, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, decreasing the font size is now standard practice in FAs. I agree that we need consistency, but that's what we're working toward here. If it's possible to implement such a thing through the .css, great, let's look into that too. But if that doesn't work, it's going to be a tough battle to get people to change all font sizes back to normal. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 02:08, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi all. There is a proposal to put the font size for <references/> into CSS: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#proposed change to css --Ligulem 12:22, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

{{rf}}

This is a great replacement for {{ref}} that appears to have never been publicised. Should the wikipedia:footnote3 page be updated to include this, even if all these templates are deprecated? (After all, a number of articles -- including Albert Einstein -- use {{rf}}.) For one thing, it avoids that nasty problem with screwing up the preview function. (Maybe we could incorporate this functionality into {{ref}}...) Johnleemk | Talk 17:04, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Problem is that if I add a reference to the top of the page, I have to change the numbering for all the citations manually. What nasty problem with preview are you talking about? —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 17:47, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

When you preview an article using {{ref}} and click a footnote, it takes you to the main article, destroying all your work (unless you use a superior web browser, AKA anything other than MSIE). Johnleemk | Talk 18:43, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

{{rf}}/{{ent}} are a.k.a. "Paul August's templates", see Wikipedia talk:Footnotes/archive2#Manual numbering versions of templates "ref" and "note". I once asked Paul August to see to it that their use would be somewhere described in a guideline. When, after long discussion, he promised to do what was necessary within a few weeks (well, that was months ago), nothing followed any more.

I'd support converting all pages containing rf/ent footnotes to cite.php footnotes. That might be a bit drastic, and would need consensus before proceeding, but I don't think it a good idea to keep active templates that are not properly documented (which their creator was apparently not prepared to do). --Francis Schonken 18:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you; perhaps doing it on a case-by-case basis on more popular articles would be a good start, and once it's largely out of use, deprecate it. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 01:08, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't like cite.php

I have to say I really don't like this new format. I understand that it's a lot easier in some ways, but personally I much prefer using the {{Ref}} and {{Note}} systems. I prefer not having the citation text within the body of the article text, as that makes the editing window display rather cumbersome and hard to filter, and I also dislike the fact that it creates double citations for sources used more than once in an article. I also dislike the lack of alphabetization, I grew up and went through school drilled in MLA citation, where you alphabetize all your sources, and I really like a nice, clean, alphabetized references section.

Now, I'm not against people using the new cite.php system, but what bothers me is that I spent about a three week period formatting citations on an article that was previously uncited, and two times now other editors have come in (in perfectly good faith) and converted it to cite.php, and I personally don't want that in that article. Just looking back through this discussion page's recent discussions alone I see several editors expressing dissatisfaction with the system, for a lot of the same reasons that I dislike it. What I do not understand is why there is this insistence on the Ref template page that that system is deprecated...where and when was this decided? Could someone reference me to that discussion? Because just looking at this page alone it does not seem like there is consensus for deprecating Ref/Note and exclusively using cite.php. Can we not let this be decided on a page by page basis, and not go around doing mass conversions on pages already nicely formatted in a different way? Am I not the only one who feels this way? Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 00:27, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering about that myself, after I saw Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles#Citations for footnotes and for linking, which still lists {{ref}} and {{note}} alongside the {{cite}} templates. Anyone want to clarify what's going on here? Is this just a very gradual process? (For the record, I used cite/ref about once before finding the new system and ever since I have been unsure as to how the two reconciled... So they don't, apparently.) –Unint 00:51, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Evilphoenix, are you aware of the ability to use the <ref name="Blah"> tag? That allows you to use the same reference multiple times without repeating all the information within the text. That eliminates one problem you mention, if I understand you correctly. As for making the edit window ugly, that's true, but the problem can be alleviated by the judicious use of html comments—see Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (something I wrote) for an example. Finally, as for the references section, I agree with you there too. Another article I've written, Welding, has both a notes section and a references section, which I think is the best way to go when you have only a few sources (generally print) and alot of citations.

Certainly, Cite.php isn't perfect, but I think it's a major improvement over ref/note because of the hassle of non-automatic numbering and having to edit in two places to take care of a reference. As for discussion, there really wasn't all that much that I'm aware of that took place on wikipedia (see m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php for most of it). A number of FAC contributors got on the bandwagon and started making the switch, though it's still possible (but not common) for articles to get through FAC with the ref/note system intact. —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 01:05, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

it would be nice to be able to have all the <ref>blah</ref> tags at the bottom of the article and then just be able to reference them with like <ref id="foo1991"/> in the text. I can't stand having the whole reference in the article body. In my ideal world it would work something like BibTeX, but I know I'm dreaming here :) Until its possible to keep the refs out of the body of the text I'll keep using the Footnotes3... - FrancisTyers 13:26, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

That would just restore all the problems we want to fix in the first place by forcing a note to be edited in two places. Circeus 14:40, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Its not a bug its a feature. Seriously. :) On the other hand, you would only have to edit the actual reference "once" then you can use it anywhere in the text — just like BibTeX. My chief gripe about Footnotes3 is that the notes can become unordered. That could easily be fixed with this system. - FrancisTyers 14:50, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the notes can become unordered, but you have a lot more control over note ordering than you neccessarily do with cite.php. Cite.php is fantastic if you want a one-to-one ration between notes and citations, but doesn't work if you want alphabetical citations, which is what I personally prefer. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 15:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

I think it's the exact opposite—when you have more than one citation per reference, use both a notes and references section, like in welding. What's the problem with that? Very little referencing information in the edit box, and an alphabetized list at the end. --Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 17:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Problems solved by Cites.php that your proposal restore:

• You still need to edit two different parts of thearticle to add a note
• A note or footnote may still lose it's second part
• All notes still need distinct names, hence possible confusion and mis-linking.

Circeus 15:11, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

In the References section, something like [A one line version would be fine too, e.g. K. E. Watkins, N. F. Dronkers and F. Vargha-Khadem (2002) "Behavioural analysis of an inherited speech and language disorder: comparison with acquired aphasia" in Brain. Vol. 125, pp. 452-464 (Oxford: OUP)]

@article{Watkins2002,
        author          =       {K. E. Watkins and N. F. Dronkers and F. Vargha-Khadem},
        title           =       {Behavioural analysis of an inherited speech and language disorder: comparison with acquired aphasia},
        journal         =       {Brain},
        volume          =       {125},
        pages           =       {452-464},
        location        =       {Oxford},
        publisher       =       {Oxford University Press},
        year            =       2002
}

Then we can cite that wherever we want in the text, e.g.

\citep{Watkins2002}

You could even make something for page numbers, \citep{Watkins2002}[453] or similar. - FrancisTyers 15:34, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

But I don't see those as problems at all. I don't mind editing stuff in two different places, it's no different whatsoever than writing a paper for school. You make your reference in your paper, then you make your citation on the Works Cited page. It's basically a trade-off...being able to conveniently edit the citation, for the coders benefit, or being able to easily edit the article, for the writers benefit. I prefer easy editing of the article, and editing in two different places is worth it to me. I like notes having distinct names, because then you can have control over how they're listed in the References section. Yes, you have to be careful and know what you're doing, but that's true about a lot of things on here. If you're careful with your linking, it works alright. Ëvilphoenix ^Burn! 15:20, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It really needs to be changed so that the reference text is in the References section, where it actually appears. I get the impression that people were in such a rush to get a real references system that they didn't try it in realistic situations much before implementing it. It's better than templates, but still needs a lot of work.

I've already proposed a bunch of changes for a newer version of cite.php that would be backwards compatible here: A different idea. It expands the <references/> tag out into <references></references> and allows you to put the reference text inside the tags. Also lots of other optional changes, but that's the main idea. — Omegatron 15:30, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

You still need to edit two different parts of thearticle to add a note

My proposal solves this by allowing you to add a note in a single place, and it is moved into the references section when you save the page (and possibly auto-named, if you don't give it a name.) — Omegatron 15:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Good job

This is a smart approach, Francis. —Encephalon 12:03, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

multiple references to the same source, but with different page numbers

For example, see quasi-finite field. Check the history too, we tried a few different options. I would like to have just one entry in the "references" section, and give different page numbers in the text itself. It seems a bit clunky to do this with a separate "notes" and "references" section. Is there an option with <ref>/<references/> to do this? Dmharvey 21:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)