Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Footnotes

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op. cit.

Footnotes may have reason to link to the reference section for a title, and op. cit. seems the best way to mask this. Should we modify to include this, which may be useful? should we leave it as WP:IAR? or can you suggest some other phrasing? This is no more dangerous than "above", "below", which routinely masks other internal links. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well this was my view, but I got a rollocking in the FAC room for using it even tho' only ibid was specified at the time. I added it as a specific essentially as a warning to other users. If there is an appetite for resurrecting it that is quite OK by me. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 20:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't introduce these because Wiki is a dynamic environment, text order can change, and we have named refs for these purposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Named references are undesirable for citing books, unless you're repeatedly citing the same page of the book. We should say that too. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Op cit implies only one work by an author, so it has the same type of problem as loc cit. The issue of masked links to a references section is only relevant to footnotes with "short citations" and internal links and no templates. If so other straightforward options for the mask exist: the author, the short title, or the author-page as unit. Gimmetrow 22:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Does it matter where the op. cit. refers? Ordinarily, it would refer to another footnote, which could disappear; my suggestion would refer to the References section, which is not likely to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. The problem is when you have a reference to "Smith, op cit" already in the text, and then someone adds a new book by Smith. If the old cite were "Smith 2005" or "Smith, My Book", it wouldn't become ambiguous. Gimmetrow 19:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Has this ever actually happened in Wikipedia history?

I was also taken aback by the "Style recommendations" comment that "not all readers are familiar with the meaning of the terms." OK, op. cit. [Shakes head], Pete Tillman (talk) 04:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Strange cite error

Hey, can someone look at omega-3 fatty acid and tell me what's up with reference #85? It's saying "no refs named simopoulos2003" when there is one. —Werson (talk) 00:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

It's usually an unclosed ref tag shortly before the one that generates the error. Fixed. Gimmetrow 00:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

BUG: repeated refnums

Hi,

In Matsuo Bashō, the two column-version produces two notes numbered "8" on Firefox... Ref 8 is where the column breaks... I temporarily switched to the one-column version; problem solved...so what's the source of the problem..? ... OK, I just looked at Georg Cantor also. Yep, same problem with repeating refnums whenever the column breaks from one column to the next! Definitely a bug... Ling.Nut (talk) 02:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Another interesting tidbit: If you look at the versions stored in the article's History— I mean via the History, I don't mean reverting to an older version—there's no problem with repeated refnums. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Except I don't see it. What version of Firefox? Does Cantor still have the issue? Gimmetrow 02:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Firefox/2.0.0.14 yes Cantor has two notes numbered 33. Thanks! Ling.Nut (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox/2.0.0.14 on WinXP and don't see the problem on either article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Windows Vista here... Also, Chinese Windows. BUT my PC in my office is XP with English Windows, and I think it has the same problem. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

"Footnotes"?

Is there a particular reason why the section containing footnotes is usually given the label "References" or "Notes" rather than the more precise and informative "Footnotes"? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

For the benefit of those who wish to remain awake I have deleted an exhaustive but, ultimately, unenlightening discussion of this and related issues that took place between the entry above and the entry below. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)] Discussions should, in general be archived, not deleted, no matter how unenlightening they may be, so I've restored the discussion and hidden it inside a collapsed hat. Klausness (talk) 19:34, 22 June 2008 (UTC) Thanks for doing that. I would have done it if I had known how. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Discussion archived for posterity
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Just editor preference, all three names are acceptable. I don't know that Footnotes is any more precise or informative. It would probably be more precise to call them Endnotes, and References may in many cases be the most informative title. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC) So it would be o.k. to change the phrase "Place the <references /> tag or {{reflist}} tag in a "Notes" or "References" section near the end of the article" in the How To Use section of this article to read "Place the <references /> tag or {{reflist}} tag in a "Notes," "References" or "Endnotes" section near the end of the article"?Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:01, 11 June 2008 (UTC) So far no objection to this change. Meanwhile, I find that perhaps "footnotes" is the right term (Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section management). So I'll alter my proposal to: Place the <references /> tag or {{reflist}} tag in a "Notes," "References" or "Footnotes" section near the end of the article" Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC) I think there's real value for readers in using consistent terminology. A few people (including me) have recently reverted your changes of "References" sections to "Footnotes", and since I see that you've brought this issue up here, I'm mentioning it here, too. "References" and "Notes" are the two standard names for footnote sections on wikipedia. I think it would be good to have just one standard name, but we definitely don't need a third one. At this point, there are millions of articles with "References" and "Notes" sections, and since it's not realistic to change all of those articles, I think we'll have to keep both of those names. For those two names, my personal preference would be to have a "References" section be for references to sources that arent connected to specific citations in the text (as with the References or Bibliography section of a book) and to have a "Notes" section be for footnotes, but the most common practice does seem to be to use "References" for footnotes. So if you wanted to change "References" sections to "Notes", I wouldn't object myself, though I suspect that such changes might be reverted by other editors. But in any case, I don't think adding another name (even if it may be a bit more descriptive) is a good idea. Klausness (talk) 15:11, 21 June 2008 (UTC) First of all, "footnotes" is acceptable per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section management and Wikipedia:References#Section headings. Secondly, "references" is something different from footnotes (or notes) per Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and descriptions ("Notes" is for footnotes containing source citations or commentary on the main text. "References" is a list of referenced materials (books, websites, etc. cited in the main text). Notes and references are often listed under one heading.) and Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Notes. Thirdly, I thought the goal of Wikipedia was constant improvement (e.g., adding a more descriptive heading), not calcification (e.g., continuing to use an unenlightening heading because "that is the way we've always done it"). Can anyone respond to these three points or should I just go ahead and make the change I am proposing? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:42, 21 June 2008 (UTC) It would be helpful if it were possible to distinguish in the editing. A <ref> section should then only contain source information</ref> while a new <note> section could contain a true footnote, with explanation</note>. Of course the <references/> command should then create a list from the references, while a <footnotes /> tag creates the notes section. This is however not available, making it close to impossible to disentangle this. Arnoutf (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2008 (UTC) I feel your pain. Do you agree that, given the limits within which we find ourselves, my proposal is at least mostly harmless? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC) (repeating what I said on Butwhatdoiknow's talk page) I actually agree with you about "References" meaning something else, but I don't see how "Footnotes" is significantly better than "Notes", and "Notes" has the advantage of consistency with current practice. Inconsistency, on the other hand, can make for a worse user experience. Will notes be in a section called "References", "Notes", "Footnotes", "End Notes", or something else that made sense to a particular editor at the time? "Footnotes" may be slightly better than "Notes", but are you going to personally change the millions of articles that already use "References" or "Notes"? It might be a good idea to change the section name to "Footnotes" in all articles, but changing it in just a few is a bad idea. Wikipedia is supposed to work by consensus, so if you think these sections should be called "Footnotes", then the best approach is to work towards getting consensus for a change in the style guidelines (which I guess would be done here, if we could get some input from other editors). Without changes in the style guidelines, people will keep reverting your changes, and other editors will continue to call these sections "References" or "Notes". Or, rather than using "Footnotes", you could go with the current guidelines and change the names of these sections from "References" to "Notes". Klausness (talk) 19:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC) The only issue here is whether to add "Footnotes" to the list of acceptable headings for the footnote section. Whether it is a wise or futile practice to change footnote headings from "References" to "Notes" (or "Footnotes") is a topic that can be left for another forum. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC) You cite no article in support of your position. I have cited four style pages that say "Footnotes" is an (not the) acceptable heading for the footnotes section. There is no need to get a consensus on this issue. There is only a need to make the footnotes article consistent with the four other cited articles that discuss this topic. It would seem to me that if you are against adding Footnotes to the list of acceptable names for the footnotes section then YOU should work on building a consensus to change the four articles I have cited. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC) My position is supported in this very article (which I didn't think I needed to cite specifically, since we're on the article's talk page). Under "How to use", it says, "Place the <references /> tag or {{reflist}} tag in a "Notes" or "References" section near the end of the article", which seems pretty unambiguous to me. Klausness (talk) 20:41, 21 June 2008 (UTC) My proposal is to change the very text you are citing. So saying "it currently says X" is not an argument against it saying Y, particularly when four other style guidelines say Y. Do you have any other rationale for leaving this article in a state of conflict with the other style guidelines I have cited? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC) I only see three guidelines cited (two of your references are to adjacent sections of the same guideline), and two of them mention "Footnotes" parenthetically as an alternative to "Notes", clearly preferring "Notes" (and using that in all examples). But, yes, they do list "Footnotes" as an alternative, so that puts them into some conflict with this guideline (which I would think should be the definitive guideline for footnotes). So the question is whether we should change this guideline or the others, and I'd say we need input from some other people to decide that. Lack of input from others shouldn't be interpreted as a consensus for changing the guideline. Klausness (talk) 21:22, 21 June 2008 (UTC) [Yep, now that you draw my attention to it, it IS "only" three.] This article, discussing the mechanics of footnotes, is not necessarily more authoritative with regard to the name of the section in which footnotes appear. Indeed, those articles that take a global view of section naming would seem a better source because they have a better idea of how the name of the section fits in with the rest of a Wikipedia article. And, since you and I seem to be the only two people discussing this topic with any passion, is it fair to say that a lack of input from others shouldn't be interpreted as a consensus for your position either? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:03, 21 June 2008 (UTC) Indeed, the lack of other input so far doesn't itself show consensus for any position, but the current guideline is presumably the result of consensus. So changes should only be made based on consensus, with the default being to leave it as it is. Klausness (talk) 00:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I think someplace back in the archives is a discussion where "Footnotes" was considered archaic for Wikipedia use, because the term refers to stuff which is placed at the "foot" of physical pages. Most footnoted books only have a few short notes at the foot of pages. Due to the way articles are presented on Wikipedia, all the notes accumulate in one section which can be rather large, which is more similar to books which gather all the notes for a chapter at the end of that chapter (or at the end of a book, often grouped by chapter). Thus the "foot" part of the "footnotes" meaning is arguably not quite how notes are used on Wikipedia, as the large clump is less similar to footnotes than to references/notes sections. -- SEWilco (talk) 00:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for providing a meaningful and substantive answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this section. This answer gives rise to a new question: Do you know why the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section management and Wikipedia:References#Section headings articles weren't changed to reflect this reasoning? Is this something that should be done now (better late than never)? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know. You might look in the archives, particularly after the above-mentioned previous discussions, to see if whatever changes you're referring to were discussed. Particularly as I'm not sure of your meanings of "this reasoning" and "changed to reflect". -- SEWilco (talk) 19:24, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Citing WP:CITE from here.

The out-of-sequence entry in the Notes section mentions WP:CITE in its explanation of why such out-of-seq entries bad things and what should be done to correct them. However, WP:CITE#Footnotes says to see this article for details about that. This seems a bit circular (Yes, I've made recent edits to this stuff, but just to correct details which had gone stale -- the general problem predates my recent edits). I would try to straighten this out myself, but I'm too pushed for time just now. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Footnoted quotes

Based on the recent discussions at ANI, various talkpages, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Footnoted quotes, and places where this has actually been discussed, such as Talk:G. David Schine, I'd like to add a couple lines to this page, perhaps:

The decision on whether or not to use quotes in footnotes, is a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Some use extensive quotes, others use none, and both styles are acceptable. The general consensus is that quotes are acceptable if they are brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader. Where there is disagreement on whether or not quotes should be used in footnotes, normal dispute resolution techniques should be followed, such as building consensus at the talkpage.

Everyone okay on this? --Elonka

It seems to me to be saying nothing that is not covered by more general policy/guideline content and is therefore just instruction creep. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk)

Could you please point to where you feel that it is already covered? I spent quite a bit of time reviewing guidelines and policies, looking for clarification, and couldn't find anything. Even ArbCom commented about how there's a lack of guidance on this. And that the issue got as far as ArbCom, would seem to indicate that some mention of it in a guideline page would be useful. Elonka 15:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I would say it is covered by this at WP:Verifiability: "The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. Editors should cite sources fully, providing as much publication information as possible, including page numbers when citing books." Since the quote parameter is part of the full citation transclusion, it should be included. Arbcom had a chance to pull the quote parameter from citation templates, but did not. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Your wording says "...whether or not to use quotes in footnotes, is a decision of style and may vary from article to article ... Where there is disagreement on whether or not quotes should be used in footnotes, normal dispute resolution techniques should be followed ..." where is the substance? When there is a dispute over content then one uses the usual methods of building a consensus. I don't see that this is saying anything more than that. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so we could delete the final sentence, that would make sense. I have crossed it out --Elonka 13:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The statement looks great to me (speaking as a participant in many of the various disputes and discussions that Elonka mentions at top), but of course the real dispute has always been and will continue to be what constitutes "brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader." Still, I think it could be very helpful to have this added as an official part of the Footnotes style guidelines page. RedSpruce (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

How do you measure that a quote is of "use or interest to the reader"? It seems like a weasily phrase where anyone can delete a quote and subjectively say it would not be of interest to the reader. The quote should be the actual text of the cited article, if the person adding chooses to use it. It should be a sentence or two. I use the quote parameter for several reasons. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Such a thing is indeed hard to "measure." However, guidelines that are difficult or impossible to measure are common throughout the MOS: Phrases like "may be unfamiliar to some readers", "when they would be confusing to the reader", "might be disruptive to the reader", "readers are unlikely to care...", and so on. Many guidelines can't be based on measurable things. But by having the above phrase as a guideline at least calls upon an editor to show that there is some basis for arguing that the added text will be "of use or interest." For example, if an editor simply refuses to give a real reason for including a footnote quote, other editors would have better grounds for challenging that evasion. RedSpruce (talk) 10:05, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The use of quotations in footnotes is a basic requirement to comply fully with WP:V. Why on earth would someone need a "real reason for including a footnote quote"? The real reason for all footnote quotes is that they support the summary text in the article, and make it clear for the reader that the summary does indeed match the source. Footnote quotes have the additional advantage of presenting relevant information that is too detailed for the body of the text, but perhaps of interest to the reader who wishes to know more. There is no rational reason for excluding footnote quotes, except in the case when they are completely irrelevant to the point being supported. However, if the latter is true, then one must question the relevance of the entire footnote, not just the quote. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg, the use of footnote quotes that you're describing is one where they are "relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader," so there's no argument there. An example of a footnote quote that doesn't fulfill that description would be here, where the article text reads "... a Bryn Mawr graduate. She had previously been married to Thayer Hobson." and the footnote quote reads "a Bryn Mawr graduate, ... She had been previously married to Thayer Hobson."

And BTW, Wikipedia:Verifiability mentions footnote quotes only briefly, only recommending their use under very narrow circumstances. RedSpruce (talk) 10:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Except that the footnote you mention is both relevant and of interest to the reader, since it helps show that the material being cited is being accurately cited - and in this case, likely being plagiarized, so it should actually be re-written or included in quotation marks. As for WP:V, it's a bit behind the times, but there's a reason all those annoying citation templates have a "quote" parameter. Again, unless the quotation is completely off-topic, or extremely long, it is only of benefit to the article and the reader. And if it's completely off-topic, then the citation itself is bad. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Repetition does not verify that the material is being cited accurately, since the quote can be falsified as easily as the paraphrase. Repetition is not "of benefit to the article and the reader;" it's repetition, i.e. "the action of repeating something that has already been said or written".

Any entire article in Wikipedia can be a hoax, and at times are, that doesn't mean we should make it easier to create hoaxes, or stop making an encyclopedia. Quotes in references make it easier to detect fraud, since all you have to do is cut and paste the quote back in Google and find the reference again. A forged quote will very quickly be detected. A forged, unquoted reference can sit in the article for months, such as in the G. David Schine article. There was a reference that he started a group called "YIP" and a reference to a website. The problem was that the website made no mention of that at all, just that he was a member, not a founder. That sat unchallenged in the article while RS was removing my correctly referenced material, and deleting the quotes from references. In the end false material was allowed to stay, and correct information was being deleted. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

<- Some guidance on the use of footnoted quotes, even if it can only be fairly general, is likely to be more helpful than no guidance—especially to the less experienced (or the more forgetful) editor. The proposed statement, which might have helped a little in a recent discussion about the Stradivarius article, looks fine to me, too. Even the encouragement to build consensus through discussion would not, in my view, go amiss. It might be optimistic to expect a newcomer to know the usual method for any situation, so surely a little reiteration here and there can do no harm? The advice is already given in several sections on the project page and, since a particular section might be briefly accessed for quick reference, this seems a sensible approach. In the context under discussion, I'd be inclined to use a form more along the lines of: "Where there is disagreement on the use of quotes in footnotes, consensus should be sought on the talk page." (This covers not only the question of inclusion, but also that of content.) As RedSpruce rightly points out, the statement won't necessarily resolve major differences of interpretation. But in such cases, the sooner we resort to discussion, the better our chances of finding a way forward. --Error -128 (talk) 20:04, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The key point here is that quotations in footnotes do no harm, and in fact only do good vis-à-vis WP:V, so excluding them is irrational at best, and harmful to the project. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

"Footnotes do no harm, and in fact only do good" is not the "key point"; it is your contention, which you have not supported nor found any agreement on here. And no one has suggested excluding them, so it's not clear why you bring that up at all. The key point is that when used, they should be with care, in a manner to be useful and relevant to the reader. Repetition is not useful or relevant. RedSpruce (talk) 17:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is, you haven't actually been able to articulate and "harm" caused by them, whereas others have articulated how they are helpful. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

"Useful and relevant to the reader" is a 100% subjective, weaselly phrase. The standards for use should be 100% objective. Allowing a weaselly phrase, just leaves us where we were before, where any editor with a grudge can follow another editor around and sweep through a group of articles, and say they are not "useful and relevant to the reader" and delete them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:43, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

• Here is my summary of reasons of why using the quote parameter in citations is important. I have include examples from actual articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 19:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

All of which reasons I dispose of here. RedSpruce (talk) 15:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Responding to, and "disposing of" are not the intellectual equivalent of each other. If I remember your main argument was that they are "repetitious and irrelevant". Which seems to be your subjective problem with them. That doesn't violate the objective Wikipedia rules for using them. I find whole articles subjectively "repetitious and irrelevant", but I don't delete them. That is because the encyclopedia wasn't written just to be useful to me. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think this has nothing to do with footnotes. RAN creates new well sourced content. RS follows him everywhere and deletes footnotes. This WP:STALK should stop.Biophys (talk) 22:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Biophys, you know now from discussion elsewhere that this statement is incorrect. Considering how serious the accusation is, you should withdraw it. RedSpruce (talk) 12:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

We still have no policy that requires the use of brief quotations in footnotes, nor do we have one that forbids it. This is a matter of personal preference that makes an extremely WP:LAME justification for an edit war, but would most certainly benefit from guidelines on its use. Alansohn (talk) 05:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• Elonka's proposed emendation properly summarizes the way the WP:FN guideline should address the use of brief quotations in footnotes. I fully support the wording as it currently stands. Alansohn (talk) 05:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

"brief" is the operative word here. Including gigantic blocks of text in footnotes, as I've seen contained in some diffs related to this controversy, borders on copyvio and bloats articles and makes them difficult to edit. And as was pointed out above, quotes in footnotes don't really prove anything about the reliability of the text since they can be easily faked. They should be used very sparingly, IMO. - Merzbow (talk) 17:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. But I looked through ~7 articles and did not see any "gigantic blocks of text in footnotes". All quotes were quite appropriate and enhanced the articles. With so many poorly sourced articles in WP, I would not blame an editor for making a lot of sourcing effort.Biophys (talk) 18:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

The articles were: G. David Schine, Annie Lee Moss, Elizabeth Bentley, Mary Stalcup Markward, and William Remington and Frank Coe. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Alright, so it looks like the consensus is to add the following to the guideline:

The decision on whether or not to use quotes in footnotes, is a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Some use extensive quotes, others use none, and both styles are acceptable. The general consensus is that quotes are acceptable if they are brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader. Where there is disagreement on the use of quotes in footnotes on a particular article, consensus should be sought on the talk page.

If anyone disagrees, please suggest specific wording changes, otherwise we'll go ahead and add this. Thanks, --Elonka 18:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort being made here, but I disagree with that wording. Not only does it avoid making anything like a specific recommendation, but it vastly overplays the notion that "Some [editors] use extensive quotes", It's an established fact that the huge majority of WP articles use no footnote quotes at all, and if you then subtract the thousands that RAN has edited, you're left with essentially none. As it's written, this text encourages the use of footnote quotes (if only inadvertently). This non-standard practice should not be encouraged until and unless there's a consensus that it's a practice that's good for Wikipedia. RedSpruce (talk) 11:02, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

RedSpruce, I think you are vastly overstating the case, by implying that it is only RAN's articles that use footnoted quotes. Many high-quality articles on Wikipedia use footnoted quotes: Alcibiades, Rudolf Vrba, Franco-Mongol alliance, David Irving, just to name a few. If you don't like the suggested guideline wording though, then please make a specific suggestion for something different, thanks. --Elonka 18:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not much of a grammarian, but shouldn't that first comma precede "and", rather than following "footnotes"? -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:14, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• • I would not have "of use or interest to the reader" that requires a crystal ball. That is just a weasel phrase not needed. Whoever was deleting before and calling them "trivia" and "irrelevant", and "repetitive", now would only have to swap in "not of interest to the reader" or "not of use to the reader" and we just start back where we were. We just need that they are allowed, and if consensus is to "not display them" they should be hidden with <!--, not deleted. When consensus was not to have them display such as at Lizzie Borden, I conceded to the majority. I am not one to sweep through articles and revert against consensus. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sentence three offers three standards: "brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader". All three are subjective to varying degrees. "Brief" is probably easiest to judge; "relevant" is a bit more challenging; "of use or interest to the reader" is pure opinion. I have added them to thousands of articles because I think they are useful in most case, while others think they are never useful under any circumstance. How can we discern what readers do or do not find useful? I would suggest omitting this clause and sticking with "brief and relevant". Alansohn (talk) 03:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I apologize for not offering a suggestion for specific wording earlier. My suggestion is:

If quotes are used in footnotes, they should be used in a way that fulfills the correct use of footnotes in general. That is, they should expand upon or add detail to a specific portion of the text. They should not simply repeat information that is already in the article.

RedSpruce (talk) 12:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I would say that is the definition of an "note" not a "reference". People still add notes, and we used to have separate note and reference sections at the end of an article. Notes even had their own numbering system apart from references. A note adds additional information that is demoted to the bottom of the article, while a reference is the actual text cited from the original source. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 12:24, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

In other words, "if you change the definition to fit my use, then my use fits the definition." RedSpruce (talk) 11:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You have left out the most important reason for using footnotes; that they verify the claim made in the text. As such, quotations are an invaluable part of that process, and, as of yet, no good rationale has been put forth for removing them. Keep in mind, this is Wikipedia, where people often, and unfortunately, change wordings in articles regardless of what footnotes say (footnotes, being small, are often ignored by casual editors). The quotations are invaluable for other editors in evaluating such changes, and seeing when they diverge from the actual reference. I propose the following:

The decision on whether or not to use quotes in footnotes, is a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Some use extensive quotes, others use none, and both styles are acceptable. Citation templates include parameters for quotes, as the general consensus is that quotes are useful for verifying material in an article, and are acceptable if they are brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, or are otherwise of interest to the reader. Where there is disagreement on the use of quotes in footnotes on a particular article, consensus should be sought on the talk page.

Jayjg ^(talk) 01:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The decision on whether or not to use quotes in footnotes, is a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Some use extensive quotes, others use none, and both styles are acceptable. Citation templates include parameters for quotes, as the general consensus is that quotes are useful for verifying material in an article, and are acceptable if they are brief, and relevant to the article text that is being footnoted. Where there is disagreement on the use of quotes in footnotes on a particular article, consensus should be sought on the talk page. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 01:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

This eliminates the weasel phrase, so that anyone deleting before as "trivial" can't just substitute in "not of use" and go on a deletion binge again. We should stress the more objective measures and delete the subjective ones, so they aren't abused. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:45, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Again the "verification" argument is used, as if quotes were magically immune to being falsified or used out of context. The only true verification is the information that points to the source material. My text only asserts that if a quote is part of your footnote, it should still follow the rules for footnotes in general. If it clarifies and adds information, then it's good. If it's nothing but repetition, it's bad. As this discussion amply demonstrates, repetition is really boring and pointless. RedSpruce (talk) 10:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

When I was in elementary school, we would be expected to follow along in a book as children were asked to read a few sentences each. The students were expected to follow along with the reading, and the teacher would walk around the class and spot check if a child knew where the place was. When asked, those distracted students who had lost the place would often place their hand on the page, fingers splayed, hoping that one of their fingers was pointing to the correct place. The issue of verification is far more important on Wikipedia, and the inclusion of a brief quotation makes it infinitely clear as to what in the reference is being cited. Sources can be readily falsified or used out of context, with or without brief quotations, but their inclusion allows any reader to go back to the source and know what is being cited and to make a proper determination if the quoted material is present in the source, is accurate and in context. How can you verify a source if you don't know what is being verified? The absence of a quotation specifying what is being cited in the source often leads readers on a wild goose chase, hoping that they can try to guess the sentence or words that are being referenced in the citation. I can't force any editor to use these brief quotations, but there is a clear benefit to their use for those who take advantage of the feature. Alansohn (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Quotes have a place in notes, but I've seen too many articles which look like

Smith was born January 1, 1800 in Alphaville, and grew up in Betaville.<ref>Source. "Born in Alphaville on New Years 1800, Smith's family soon moved to Betaville".</ref>

What do quotes like this add to the article? Not much that I can tell in most cases. It also encourages a form of writing where each sentence corresponds closely to a sentence in a source. I've seen well-developed articles formed almost entirely by weaving together sentences selected from the sources. The resulting prose tends to be choppy and lacking originality. I don't want to encourage more of that sort of writing. Gimmetrow 22:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

That is because articles are built one fact at a time. So you end up with short sentences with individual facts arranged in chrono order. Once all the facts are in chrono order a second round of editing polishes the prose. But that has nothing to do with references, its more of an article in a beta stage, like the ones that come from congressional biographies that are just dates and places. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 06:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I question cause and effect here. Does using quotations cause editors to craft sentences that are modeled on a quotation or is it a matter of poor writing skills? If anything, use of the quotations allows readers to identify such minimal paraphrases and allows other editors to reword the text to address the issue. Eliminating quotations from the references seems most unlikely to solve the paraphrase problem. If anything, it would only camouflage it better. Alansohn (talk) 22:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles based mostly on quotes already exist without note-quotes. My fear is that encouraging note-quotes will implicitly encourage this form of writing. Not encouraging is not the same as eliminating. Gimmetrow 23:18, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

As I read the proposed wording, the statement is rather neutral on the subject, neither encouraging nor discouraging the use of footnoted quotes. Those who use them can use them, those who don't want to are free to eschew their use. Prose issues would be more easily identified and addressed -- and thereby discouraged -- if the practice is plainly identifiable rather than requiring editors to search through each source to find if a sentence in article is a simple paraphrase. Alansohn (talk) 23:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Gimmetrow; nice to see a new voice here. I think more important and more central than whether the use of quotes encourages badly-written articles is the fact you started out with: What do quotes like your example add to the article? Nothing. When something that adds nothing to an article is inserted into an article, it makes the article look bad and amateurish. And when one editor is responsible for making thousands of such edits to thousands of articles, and when that editor won't listen to dozens of opinions against him... blah, blah, blah... circle back to a debate that started months ago. <sigh> RedSpruce (talk) 15:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Most note-quotes I have seen add little or nothing, and I think wording should discourage note-quotes which essentially repeat what's in the text. However, I can visualize rare cases where that may be useful, for instance if some piece of numerical info is regularly vandalized. Having the info in another place, even as a HTML comment, may in particular cases help other editors identify the vandalism. Gimmetrow 23:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

←User:Jayjg Rcently added this text to the project page: "as the general consensus is that quotes are useful for verifying material in an article" The above discussion makes it quite clear that there is no such consensus, so I've removed that text. The section now reads:

The decision on whether or not to use quotes in footnotes is a decision of style and may vary from article to article. Citation templates include parameters for quotes, and the general consensus is that quotes are acceptable if they are brief, relevant to the article text that is being footnoted, and of use or interest to the reader. Where there is disagreement on the use of quotes in footnotes on a particular article, consensus should be sought on the talk page.

Is this acceptable to all present, or should we remove the passage altogether and start the discussion from scratch again? RedSpruce (talk) 12:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I've only loosely followed this discussion. I'd just like to add my observation that most of quotes that I've seen added in footnotes are pretty much useless for the purposes of verification -- often being nothing more than the opening sentence of the publication, presented without any context, and often entirely unrelated to the detail(s) in the article that the footnote is purported to be supporting. Such gratuitous quotes are, IMO, completely useless. There may be places where intelligent and selective quoting is helpful, but this guideline should not encourage stuffing footnotes with irrelevancies. older ≠ wiser 13:53, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you give examples of what you are describing? Jayjg ^(talk) 22:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

I can point you to some examples, Jayjg: just look for pretty much any article edited by User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). RedSpruce (talk) 10:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

There was a good consensus for its inclusion, and a strong rationale as well. Please gain consensus for removing it before doing so. BTW, sorry about the rollback, I hit the wrong button, but please don't remove the material without consensus. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:28, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems to me that there is no consensus to include it in the first place and to claim that a consensus is needed to remove it is not a fair use of the term consensus. AFAICT few people have taken part in the discussion and of those that have about half have expressed the point of view that little is added by this extension that is not already covered by the guideline. Is it really worth the wp:instruction creep? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the point about quotes altogether until and unless something resembling a consensus is reached about its content. A vague and generally useless guideline is bad, but a guideline that makes false claims of a "consensus" on some point is totally unacceptable. RedSpruce (talk) 10:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

And now User:Alansohn has replaced the passage, joining the "I declare there is a consensus" school. This is blatantly disruptive and dishonest.

I count the following people as participants in this discussion:

• User:Elonka
• User:Philip Baird Shearer
• User:RedSpruce
• User:Error -128
• User:Biophys
• Gimmetrow
• older ≠ wiser
• User:Jayjg
• User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )
• Alansohn

Of these, a total of 3 have specifically endorsed the version that Jayjg and Alansohn have inserted: Jayjg, Alansohn, and RAN. Others have expressed reservations and I have expressed outright disagreement. That is not a consensus. Indeed, I don't see how anything that has been discussed by so few people could be called "consensus" for a Wikipedia style guideline in the first place. I strongly propose that the whole issue of adding a passage regarding footnote quotes be dropped. There isn't a consensus, and there isn't likely to be one (except perhaps one to drop the issue). RedSpruce (talk) 16:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I have explicitly stated that I do not agree with the wording added as a result of the consensus process. The wording inserted is far too restrictive and subjective in determining where the use of footnoted quotes is appropriate. While I disapprove of the exact wording, I am willing to accept the wording as a compromise drafted by User:Elonka to reflect the concerns raised throughout the process, reasonable or not. Alansohn (talk) 16:57, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I have been watching this discussion without participating heretofore and am happy to endorse Elonka's draft of 18:22, 4 July 2008. Ben MacDui 17:52, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Ben - Elonka's draft looks good. Sceptre ^(talk) 18:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Section break

Re.

...quotes are useful for verifying material in an article...

This is not by definition so. I propose to replace by

...quotes can be useful for verifying material in an article...

and improve the flow of the sentence. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:09, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

The replacement of "are" with "can be" looks reasonable. I would also point out that this dovetails nicely with WP:RSUE, where quotes (and translated quotes) are encouraged when dealing with foreign-language sources. --Elonka 19:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Note also the FOF of this 2007 RfAr case:

The [...] article, despite containing many citations, remains weakly sourced due to [...] and the uninformative nature of the citations.

It is important not to set up unintended traps for unsuspecting contributors, who might be encouraged to give large quotations & translations in order to give context, and then afterwards find themselves entangled in procedure for having quoted too much (which was what had happened leading -among other problems- to the RfAr I quoted from). --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding an idea

See this talk page discussion:

...I'm not a too big fan (e.g. in Prem Rawat reduction of the text quoted in footnotes is highly desirable imho). At the one side I'm waiting for a wikipedia-wide consensus to develop. On the other side I think the "collapsible" format I introduced in Bibliography of Prem Rawat and his organizations an acceptable solution, if used in a thoughtful way. The Prem Rawat article might benefit from it as a beneficial step in the right direction.

What do others think about the "collapsible" format as used in Bibliography of Prem Rawat and his organizations#References? --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Quote farms in footnotes should be discouraged. They are often used to work around the proscription placed on editors by Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Attributing and substantiating biased statements. They are often used to make a point (and are created by trawling using an internet search engine using a biased phrase and then selecting an impressive number which make the point). The thinking seems to be that as one may not write "Many scholars ..." I will put in a quote farm and that will give the impression of many scholars although I have not explicitly written it as such in the text of the article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:59, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I have definitely seen a few cases where quotes have been used in citations to add undue weight to a particular POV. However, I don't think that such occasional misuse should prevent the majority of cases where quotes are useful in verifying information in the article. --Elonka 15:22, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough, but loopholes should be avoided though, for which I added an additional caveat to the guidance. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Could a couple people list a few articles which, in their opinion, appropriately use quotes in footnotes to aid verification? Gimmetrow 15:30, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• Battle of Waterloo Fitchett --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

• I would also like to add to the paragraph, that when the consensus is to not display the citation quotes that they be marked with the <!-- hide markup, rather than be deleted. That way they are still available to the researcher, even if they are determined to be not of interest stylistically. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:36, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

• Nah, currently we have "... not used as an evasion of other guidance...": Current MoS guidance has "Editors use invisible comments to communicate with each other in the body of the text of an article," (my bolding) and there are other places that narrow the scope of what we generally do with hidden comments ("Note that most comments should go on the appropriate Talk page"). I don't think cluttering mainspace with hidden verification material – that may or may not be acceptable but sort of evading further talk page discussion while invisible for those not accidently clicking "edit" – would be anywhere near to a solution we should actively support. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

The most fundamental benefit of footnoted quotes, and one that has not been addressed yet, is that it specifies what exactly is being cited in the reference. Narrowing down a source to an article or publication is great, but it can often bu unclear as to what words or sentences are being used to support the claim made in a Wikipedia article. A brief citation leaves no doubt as to the text in question. Again, I do not believe that anyone should be forced to include brief quotes in references. Nor is there anything in Wikipedia policy that forbids their use. Footnoted quotes seem to have become a handy issue to edit war over, when it ought to be a mere preference. While I still disagree with the exact wording, it's clear that there is no consensus whatsoever to forbid the use or to justify the removal of quotations in references. Those who choose not to use the feature are free to do so. Alansohn (talk)

• Re. "The most fundamental benefit" – disagree.
• Re. "not been addressed yet" – it has, in general terms: "can be useful for the verifiability of material in an article". As we disagree about what is the "most fundamental" aspect of that usefulness, I'd keep it to the broader description.
• Re. "While I still disagree with the exact wording" – vaguish: could you propose an improved wording on this talk page if you're convinced another wording would be better? --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:37, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

For other good examples of the use of footnotes, I would point to Franco-Mongol alliance, where quotes were used to help in verification of offline sources. Similar styles were used in Mongol raids into Palestine, and Knights Templar (a Featured class article). I could also provide other examples of articles where quotes are used per WP:RSUE to help in verifying foreign-language sources, such as Hedvig Malina. Many quotes were added during disputes, and helped a great deal to help stabilize things: Any place where a dispute would erupt over a portion of the article, where the editors could not access (or read) the sources for themselves, a good quote in a footnote usually calmed things right down. --Elonka 18:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes and parenthesis

If a footnote concerns a sentence in a parenthesis, should it be located before or after the parenthesis ? As an example, should we write "(he was very happy [2])", or "(he was very happy)[2]", or something else ? SyG (talk) 15:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I vote for "happy [2])" In fact, if it is an entire sentence within parentheses, I'd put the period after "happy." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, so something like "(he was very happy.[2])" then. Thanks for your answer! SyG (talk) 18:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

What is the "ref label" tag (linked to "note table" entries)?

Can someone please educate an ignoramus? Is there an article that discusses and explains the "ref label" tag (e.g., Gettysburg Address#Notes)? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

See Template:Ref/doc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the speedy response. I see that this approach to footnoting is "deprecated." Should we modify this article to alert editors that they may see alternate approaches to footnoting but that the <ref> tag is now preferred? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ref num is deprecated. Ref and note are already mentioned on this page. And ref group is in development and not yet documented. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is that we do more to alert those who are not as familiar with the subject as you are. Perhaps by changing You can add a footnote to an article by writing your note within <ref> ... </ref> tags, as explained below. in the introduction to You can add a footnote to an article by writing your note within <ref> ... </ref> tags, as explained below. (There are other ways of creating footnotes, but using the <ref> tag is preferred.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't object to that, but with this new ref group thingie in development, it may be premature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. My inclination is to go ahead and do the change now, it can always be updated when the ref group finishes its work. However, I will give it a day or two to see whether anyone else wants to chime in. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 10:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. It looks like WillowW's edit moots this discussion. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Based on our experience over the past few months, the code is safe to use as is. It's dubbed "experimental", I believe, because Steve is planning on making some improvements to it on the year time-scale, improvements such as allowing references within references. I think we needn't wait for those improvements. Other systems may come along, such as my own or a variant thereof, but I think this method will continue to work indefinitely. Willow (talk) 12:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Documentation for the "group=note" extension to ref tags

Hi, I'd like to add some documentation to this article explaining the usage of the group=note extension to the ref tag. Since I'm leaving tomorrow for a few weeks, and since it's been urgently requested at FAC, I'm going to be BOLD and just do it. Anyone can revert or amend my additions, if they're unwelcome. Thanks for being patient! :) Willow (talk) 10:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

First sentence terminology

I am concerned about the following text: It is often desirable for an article to have two sets of footnotes: one for citing the sources, and another for explanatory notes. To harmonize this article with wp:layout should it be changed to It is often desirable for an article to have two sections of supporting material: one for citing the sources, and another for explanatory footnotes? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I prefer "footnotes" to "supporting material", since it's more specific and informative. It's also the subject of which we're speaking in this article, right? I'm sorry, though, that I don't see the inconsistency in wp:layout (at least for this aspect)? Willow (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes. I prefer "footnotes" as well. In fact, I recently suggested that "Footnotes" be added to this article as an acceptable section heading. This suggestion was vigorously rejected. Finally, it was explained to me that someplace back in the archives is a discussion where "Footnotes" was considered archaic for Wikipedia use, because the term refers to stuff which is placed at the "foot" of physical pages. Most footnoted books only have a few short notes at the foot of pages. Due to the way articles are presented on Wikipedia, all the notes accumulate in one section which can be rather large, which is more similar to books which gather all the notes for a chapter at the end of that chapter (or at the end of a book, often grouped by chapter). Thus the "foot" part of the "footnotes" meaning is arguably not quite how notes are used on Wikipedia, as the large clump is less similar to footnotes than to references/notes sections. So, despite what you and I prefer, "footnotes" is a term of art that should be used with some care (at least in this article).

Inconsistency. The inconsistency is that, as I read the Layout article, "Notes" (i.e., footnotes created by embedded links - the kind that are discussed in this article) and "References" (a typed list of citations - something which is not discussed in this article) are two different things. Am I misreading Layout? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Resolving conflict

A similar concern relates to the next sentence: The former are often called "References", whereas the later are called "Notes". While "often called" is certainly true, should that practice be discouraged as not in accordance with wp:layout#Notes and wp:layout#References? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I see the difficulty, but I would favour changing wp:layout to match this, rather than the reverse.Willow (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

And, of course, the Layout mavens would favor changing this article. And I believe they would have a point. This article is about how to create and use footnotes, it is not the place to resolve global issues of how an article is structured. That is the subject of the Layout article. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

A clear division of explanatory notes and source citations seems to be current Best Practice in Wikipedia's Featured Articles, and it seems to agree with common sense. I also see the spirit of that division in the final sentence of the Notes section at wp:layout#Notes: "...name the section References unless some of the footnotes are notes and not citations, in which case name the section Notes and references." Willow (talk) 12:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

WillowW, thanks for the documentation. I concur that the wording on refs and notes agrees with practice and is fine. I'm not sure if these additions, though, are premature of if the system should gain acceptance somewhere, for example, the Village Pump or some centralized discussion location, since it's marked as "experimental" and "use with caution" and still under development. If the system gains acceptance, perhaps we can add examples at some point. Further discussion at Wikipedia talk:FAC#New references feature, where it seems that this system first appeared, and there is some concern that it hadn't gained widespread acceptance yet and shouldn't be implemented yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that explanatory notes ("Notes" - embedded footnotes) and source citations ("References" - typed in list) should be clearly divided and I think that is what the Layout article does. The text leading up to the partial sentence you quote reads: If there are only a few cited sources in an article and all of the references are cited, then the sections "Notes" and "References" can be combined. If this is done then ... So the text you quoted only applies in very limited circumstances. (And, in fact, "cited sources" is a bit ambiguous - it sounds like "References," not "Notes".) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yet another discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Discursive notes; I wish this discussion had occurred in a central place before this experimental method was added to many pages, but ... it's a Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Much better now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

links between page refs and bibliography

Is there a way to get page refs that link to the book and then back again? I can go to the book, but when I go back, it goes to the first ref that links to the book instead of whichever one was clicked. I read something about this in the archive where it could be achieved by using the browsers back button, but maybe that hasn't been implemented yet. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Links in footnotes to newsarticles requiring payment for access

I am not sure if this is the right place to ask about this, but I could not find the relevant answers in other places. I have a question regarding the appropriateness of including an http link in a reference to a newspaper article, if this link leads to a short abstract/excerpt of the article on the newspaper's site, where payment is required to access the full version of the article. I am unsure on this issue myself. Many newspapers, such as New York Times, Los Angeles Times, etc, have archival sections for older articles where payment (usually a few dollars) is required to see the article. Doing googlenews searches often leads to such sites. On one hand, icluding a link like that in a reference (rather than just giving a plain text reference, with the publication name, date, etc), makes it easier for people who really want to verify the information cited or maybe learn more about it, to access such information quickly. Paying $3.95 to read an article is easier than going to the library, and, with the gasoline prices being what they are, it may even be cheaper as well -:). On the other hand, providing a footnoted reference link to a non-free site might look like a form of advertisement or commercial endorsement of a particular site.

Is there a policy/guideline or at least some preferred WP convention regarding how to deal with this issue? Thanks, Nsk92 (talk) 15:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

linking to the abstract is fine, just a few months ago the NYTimes all required payment, now post 1985 or so is free. At least with the abstract you can verify the date and most the info. Most of what I use comes from the abstract anyway. MY concern is that the links may change, as the NYT changes its links once they hosted the articles themselves. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I would always include full-specs of the print edition (as that will never change), and a link to the non-free internet version (with date); when available, as this allows people with a subscription to access (and those willing to pay). Basically this is what we do with many articles from scientific journals too (most of which are not free - $20-$40 for a single article is the rate.......); although scientific journal have adopted the DOI standard to cope with changing links. Arnoutf (talk) 20:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

And Time magazine was pay last year and free this year, using the same links. Newsweek started to add their archive, but so far not much. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:25, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Any link is useful, as long as the URL complements rather than substitutes for a full citation. --Adoniscik^{(t, c)} 00:57, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Mark-up would be better than encouraging people to remove reference information

With reference to my recent edit, [1], I think it would be better to have a JavaScript implementation of syntax highlighting for wikitext, than to shorten references such that they are likely to become broken. In my experience, most editors, when finding a broken reference, will not repair it, but remove it instead. After that point, it becomes very unlikely that anyone other than the original author (if we happen to be lucky enough that he/she is watching the article) will become aware that the reference needs to be reinserted. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 12:26, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to completely reverse a long-standing recommendation, without getting some consensus here. Being WP:BOLD has it's place, but a complete reversal seems to be going a little far. Yes there is a potential for a prolem, but with well-structure references, it's usually pretty clear what has gone walkabout. Generally there should be no reason to remove referenced text without some discussion, so such breakages are often the result of overlooked vandalism. JavaScript has it's weaknesses, I cannot use it on the browser session I am currently editing from. David Underdown (talk) 12:39, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Often what the guideline pages say is not the same as what the experienced editors adhere to. Hence it's appropriate to change guidelines when they are felt not to conform to current best practice. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 13:07, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think I'm a pretty experienced editor (my account appears to be about a year older than yours for a start), and the existing guidline certainly reflects my normal practice, and as I say, I've not expereinced any major problems that way. David Underdown (talk) 13:16, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be because the articles you work on are edited by a small group of dedicated users that probably also watch the articles.[2][3] I think your vandalism claim is tenuous - a lot of people will not be familiar with the references scheme, and will, for instance, remove a sentence when they feel the information given has been duplicated in the article. They will not, in the vast majority of cases, check the references section after making the edit, so they won't ever see the big red sign that says "broken reference". And in all likelihood, the next "editor" (who may be a simple reader who feels they want to do something about that big red sign) who comes along won't ever have looked at the history tab, so may simply remove the reference to supply a short-term, and short-sighted solution to the problem. The next person that comes along won't even know there ever was a problem. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 13:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a fairly selective view of my editing output. Also note that the user whose edits started this issue has pointed out that broken cites are automatically placed in a maintenance category which he also does a lot of processing on, including automatic searching of the article history to find what the original reference was. David Underdown (talk) 08:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

That's a bus number of 1. Not very reassuring. What happens to the instances that get "fixed" before he gets to them? They won't show up in that category either. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 11:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

David, my account is quite a bit older than yours and I agree with Papa Lima Whiskey. pschemp | talk 14:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with David particularly since the change to the Wiki software the introduced the Big Red letters if the main reference is removed. Also having text after ref tags with the same name can lead to a more subtle editing error which does not show up is such a clear way. It happens when one instance of the text is edited, but not the others that use the same name tag. This is usually because an editor is fixing a broken URL in the first instance of a named reference tag, and does not realise there are more of the same embedded further down the page. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:11, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

That would be something that the Cite.php extension should report. Have you verified that it doesn't? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 18:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I also support the existing policy, but either way I find it helpful to have the discussion first rather than unannounced changes to established practice suddenly appearing. Ben MacDui 17:22, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

They were actually announced. That's what started this discussion. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 17:27, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Personally I don't use the "ref name" feature and don't see the attraction of it. Short footnotes are just about equally small in the text, allow you to cite specific pages (which isn't easily done with most used of named references), and cause the footnotes to appear within the article in normal sequentially numbered order rather than a jumbled mess that I think is unattractive. I think it would be best if the guideline simply introduced the feature and discussed its pros and cons without making a recommendation to use it or not. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:37, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

I could agree to clarifying the pros and cons, without recommendation. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 00:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I use the ref name= tag all the time, and I combine multiple references into a single one, using the name= parameter, whenever I find them. I've never had anyone complain about what I've combined, and I've never had anyone (that I know of) go through my footnotes and expand the short (name parameter) footnotes to long ones. If I found such a case, I'd revert, as contrary to this guideline, because long footnotes are more difficult for editors - the way we embed footnotes in text makes it harder to edit, after all; and because it's useful to readers to see that a particular source is cited multiple times. Granted, the edits I do rarely involve a book as a source, so page numbering isn't important, but that's certainly true of the majority of sources cited in Wikipedia, and it's why we have the author-date citation style for articles which use journal articles and books as the main sources. In short, what is being proposed is a fairly radical change; I certainly oppose such a major change in the guideline without a lot more publicity and discussion - at minimum, posting at WP:VPPR. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Be bold. I think that goes for notifications on the village pump if you feel that there is a need for it. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 11:24, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not the one trying to establish consensus; more importantly, given what I consider to be a confusing title to the section, and confusing mentions of javascript (and I'm perfectly willing to admit the confusion may only be in my mind), I don't consider myself capable of posting a brief but accurate synopsis of the proposal at VPPR, nor do I (again, because of my confusion) consider that linking solely to the section title would be enough information for other editors to understand what is being proposed. So I'll take a pass on that. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 12:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

[4] Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 17:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think copying the refs would be more prone to subtle breakage, where they should be the same, but change independently; which is worse than the obvious breakage when an error is detected. But I'm also not clear on how this relates to javascript. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Because the main reason given for shortening repeat occurrences of a reference is that it makes the source text more readable. If we had syntax highlighting, the readability issue would not come up, making a clear case in favour of long references every time. It's already been stated that conflicts between repeat occurrences could be checked for, and flagged up. The guy who cited that as a reason for keeping short references has not substantiated the implicit claim that the software doesn't already check for this problem, and flag it. Even if that functionality was missing, it would be a case for bug reporting and fixing. Comparing two strings is a very trivial thing to do in programming. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 18:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer to keep the old form of the advice, but include a note of caution about the potential breakage described above, as losing references due to an avoidable mistake is pretty bad news. Is that worth a subsection or just a paragraph? --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 17:32, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

How does the note of caution help? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 18:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In the same way that changing the whole section would. In both cases they are advisory pieces of text; if you want a technical solution to enforce a certain style then no change on this page will be effective. I'm not sure if I understand your question. --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 07:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the guideline *does* make a recommendation, and there *is* a technical solution for it (check [5] for revisions from 29 July 2008), but that technical solution is amazingly unhelpful. So if we can't have a consensus to endorse long references for the sake of article stability, then it would at least be nice to take away the justification for botlike-removal of redundant copies of long references. Always remember that thorough referencing of an article takes way more time than writing the prose. So the references should enjoy special protection. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 08:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

So it seems this point was carried by consensus, seeing that nobody replied to it? Does that mean the wording can be changed to something less than a recommendation? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 18:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrm, the post on WP:VPPR says there is a forming consensus to change the guideline, but it seems to be "no consensus" leaning towards "keep" to me. Anyway, my opinion:

• I doubt a syntax highlighting in-browser text editor (JavaScript or otherwise) is coming any time soon, and if it does I'll probably disable it in my preferences because in my experience those are usually very slow.
• I don't buy the claim that people breaking references and others then removing instead of fixing them is so common as is claimed without a shred of evidence. I've more often seen cases where someone vandalized a section and a well-meaning person deleted the section instead of reverting the vandalism.
• Regarding the utility of the "name" parameter on references, I would much prefer out-of-order numbering to having the exact same reference repeated several times. The "specific pages" issue is a red herring, BTW.
• Besides the cleaner editing window, using named refs can help reduce technical issues with article size. Not that this is likely to be a big deal.
• The software currently does not check for named references with different content. It's so easy to test, why speculate over whether it does or not?
• There is already a note cautioning against leaving orphaned references, BTW.

IMO, the current guideline represents both current practice and best practice. Anomie⚔ 00:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The guideline on article size is another red herring, because wikitext is never seen by a normal reader's browser. In fact, the 32KB convention has been effectively obsoleted for some time now (from the guideline you cite): In the past, because of some now rarely used browsers, technical considerations prompted a strong recommendation that articles be limited to a maximum of precisely 32 KB in size, since editing any article longer than that would cause severe problems. With the advent of the section editing feature and the availability of upgrades for the affected browsers, this once hard and fast rule has been softened and many articles now exist which are over 32 KB of total text size. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 08:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

AFAICT, the old 32 KB limit had nothing to do with output and everything to do with old browsers truncating the contents of the textarea to 32 KB. WP:SIZE also goes on to say that excessively long pages/sections can still cause issues, even though the hard 32 KB limit is effectively obsolete. And I noted that it was unlikely to be a big deal anyway. Anomie⚔ 11:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd really appreciate if you could contribute to keeping this discussion focused, and not bring up things that are unlikely to be a big deal anyway. Thank you. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 12:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

There is already a note cautioning against leaving orphaned references is irrelevant because a tiny fraction of editors ever read this document, and many casual visitors will remove something on impulse. I have to equally ask you for evidence for your claims. Where is your evidence for what fraction of people read this document? Where is your evidence that people clean up after themselves? I've more often seen cases where someone vandalized a section and a well-meaning person deleted the section instead of reverting the vandalism. Evidence? Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 09:02, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

If the text on this page is irrelevant because no one reads it, why are you fighting so hard to try to change it? As for evidence that I've seen more vandalism-reversion-related removal of content than broken-reference-related removal of ref tags, I seem to have fixed 0 of the latter and 7 of the former.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Maybe more, if I didn't use a good edit summary in some. All in all, though, neither seems to be particularly common. Anomie⚔ 11:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

why are you fighting so hard to try to change it? Please read the discussion. Everything has already been stated. Thank you. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 12:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I definitely the old guideline (e.g <ref name="name" /> for the repeats is best. Yes, it can result in breakage, but such breakage is easily detected. You just look for the glaring red text, then copy the original from the history. Repeating every time will result in nasty inconsistencies that the software can not fix (and I'm not sure I see an elegant way it could fix them). Superm401 - Talk 05:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll have to ask you not to participate in discussion without having read it first, please. I've explained why what you suggest is likely to fail, *twice*. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 08:51, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It has finally dawned on me that you're proposing that the full text of footnotes be repeated in every single "ref=name" footnote. (I had thought you were proposing that ref=name footnotes be discouraged, per se). So let me state emphatically that I think this is a very bad idea. Editors make mistakes with footnotes - they omit information, get a parameter wrong, whatever. If this change were adopted, and I were to find an such an error, I couldn't assume that simply fixing it would take care of the problem. I'd have to check for multiple full text versions of the same ref=name footnotes, and change all of them - so now, instead of editing a section, I'm editing a whole article. And then, of course, editors looking at the changes I've made have a lot more work to do (because I've changed a lot of footnotes, not just one footnote). And if I make a typo when I'm fixing these footnotes, then someone else has to change all of them. [Plus an editor who is unaware of this change (it's a fact of life that not all editors keep up to date on all changes to guidelines) is going to be puzzled or frustrated when he/she "fixes" with a ref=name footnote, only to find that nothing changes in the visible article - because - unbeknownst to the editor, that wasn't the first non-empty "ref=name" footnote.] Sorry, I'd rather simply deal with occasionally having to go into the history of a page to find what edit deleted the main ref=name footnote, and then put that information back into the article. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

[13] Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 15:50, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

It's all well and good to talk about hypothetical software features; I'm opposed to changing the guideline now, which I thought was the topic of discussion. If you want to clearly spell out exactly what software features would be needed (in your mind) to deal with all the possible problems from this change (a user subpage would be good), then the conversation should certainly continue. (And that would be useful in preparing bug/feature requests/reports.) Otherwise, I think this is fairly pointless; I doubt you're going to get consensus for an ill-defined set of future software changes. And acknowledging that you [[14] jumped the gun in changing the guideline when you did] might be helpful in establishing some credibility here. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Erm, no. That's not how it works. I'm not adding to the guideline, I'm pointing out that the guideline makes a recommendation that is ill-advised. My "credibility" has nothing to do with the argument. The argument is sound. I don't need to pander to your little quirks. This is about making a better encyclopaedia. Your opinion will be judged on its merit, as will anybody else's. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk; todo) 23:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I have to oppose this change. I think the ease of use and enhanced readability provided by the shortened tags outweighs problems with breakage, and I think that guidelines should continue to recommend it. (I certify that I have read the above discussion.) With syntax highlighting, I would be open to changing my mind. Mr. IP 《Defender of Open Editing》 14:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Problem with <ref> tags

I have encountered a strange problem with <ref> tags: whenever I put in a reference name that contains characters that aren't in the Windows-1252 encoding (i.e. <ref name=revolt_milanović>, I get strange messages when I try to use the reference twice. The only solution I've found to work is enclosing the name with quotations (like this: <ref name="revolt_milanović">). An example of this problem is here (I forgot to remove the temporary references tag when I edited the Political career section, but it by itself doesn't cause the problem). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Admiral Norton (talk • contribs) 2 August 2008 11:40 (UTC)

IMO the quotes should always be used anyway, but you are correct that the this page states that quotes are optional unless the name consists of more than one word. I've added to it that certain non-ASCII characters will also require quotes. Anomie⚔ 14:11, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. It seems I had forgotten to sign. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 15:08, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

What if you need to add a reference to a note?

I tried to add a reference to a note I made, but it broke... Help please? diff -Malkinann (talk) 07:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

---

Reference tags can't be nested, so you can't include a citation reference inside an explanatory note reference. I would suggest simply including citation reference(s) for the note immediately following the note. - So where you had...

Sometimes the bottom character will be the aggressor in the relationship,<ref group=nb>This character has been called an "Osoi uke" (襲い受け, "attacking uke"). He is usually paired with a "Hetare seme" (ヘタレ攻め, "wimpy seme").<ref name ="fujyoshi glossary"/></ref>

I would suggest...

Sometimes the bottom character will be the aggressor in the relationship,<ref group=nb>This character has been called an "Osoi uke" (襲い受け, "attacking uke"). He is usually paired with a "Hetare seme" (ヘタレ攻め, "wimpy seme").</ref><ref name ="fujyoshi glossary"/>

--SallyScot (talk) 12:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thank you for your help!! :D Should the help section here be changed to make that clearer (you can't nest a reference-footnote in a text-footnote)? -Malkinann (talk) 12:33, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Using the #tag magic word, you can nest references. For example,

Sometimes the bottom character will be the aggressor in the relationship,{{#tag:ref|his character has been called an "Osoi uke" (襲い受け, "attacking uke"). He is usually paired with a "Hetare seme" (ヘタレ攻め, "wimpy seme").<ref name ="fujyoshi glossary"/>|group=nb}}

This is noted in the Known bugs section. Anomie⚔ 14:09, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I read that on the page, but I didn't understand it. Thank you for the explanation! -Malkinann (talk) 22:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

New text

I have no idea what this new text is trying to say ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Me neither. Undo and ask for an explanation. --Adoniscik^{(t, c)} 00:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Undone, and waiting for User:Pmanderson to clarify. Anomie⚔ 14:18, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's trying to avoid "footnotecruft", where there's a statement and a million footnotes behind that statement? (as in shoujo manga, "Other female artists of the same generation, such as Riyoko Ikeda, Yukari Ichijo, and Sumika Yamamoto, garnered unprecedented popular support with such hits (respectively) as Berusaiyu no bara (ベルサイユのばら, "The Rose of Versailles"), Dezainaa (デザイナー, "Designer"), and Eesu wo nerae! (エースをねらえ！, "Aim for the Ace!").[16][17][18][19][14][15][4]") ? -Malkinann (talk) 01:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

RfF, unicode support for the value of the name attribute

Please let it work, <ref name="utf-8 unicode string">. --Cheol (talk) 00:27, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Translation footnotes

I also tried to create a note to a reference and I only got it halfway, couldnt get them to link to eachother! So I was wondering, in the case of a possible Featured Article, is it possible to just make the translations directly after the reference within?

I was wondering, considering the FA criteria etc, what would be the best way to do such? I was thinking of doing something like this:

REFERENCES

1.Croatian John Smith (2007-10-09) "Croatian story". Retrieved on 2008-08-14. Translation - 3rd paragraph: The Croatian national team has played games sine 1909 and had its first international game against Indonesia. This was during the first world war and all further Croatian teams ceased to exist after this game.

Would that be acceptable or would I need to use inline citations (which I have already posted help for because I have absolutely no idea how they work even after reading all the help articles!). THANKS! Domiy (talk) 03:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods should help. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:14, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

See also WP:RSUE for information on dealing with foreign-language sources. There's no standard formatting, but one system that I've seen used is to put the English translation first, followed by the foreign-language original version, in italics and within parentheses. For example: "The Historical Chronology of Hungary" (Magyarország történeti kronológiája). --Elonka 14:14, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Text to be removed at WP:CITE

These sections may be removed from WP:CITE. I'm placing here on this talk page in case there is something which should be salvaged and used in this article. I'm fairly certain that all the information they contain is already covered in this article and in more detail. I think there might be a topic sentence or two in here that would improve this guideline—the language in these sections is a little more elementary and makes a better introduction, IMHO. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 11:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

I added a version of the middle section below to the article. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 05:11, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Using the same citation again

If you want to use the same citation to support another point in the same article, you do not need to add the whole citation again. In fact this would add unnecessary clutter, both in edit mode and in the references list. Instead you can give the first citation a name. Then you only need to use that name in future in that article, instead of the whole citation.

The name you want to use goes inside the first ref tag. So instead of just <ref> it will say, for example: <ref name="Miller2005">. The tag at the end is the same, so in this example the whole thing would look like: <ref name="Miller2005">Miller, E: "The Sun", page 23. Academic Press, 2005</ref>.

From now on, at the point where you want to use the citation again, you just add: <ref name="Miller2005"/> In other words, it is the same as the ref tag used to give the first citation a name, but with an added / symbol. And you don't add anything else. If you forget the /, it will blank the rest of the article, so preview your change first.

Making an article use the footnotes system

See also: Template:Reflist

If you are creating a new article or editing one that doesn't have automated citation listing (the footnotes or "ref tag" system), you can easily create this by making a new section towards the end of the article (usually headed "References") and adding one of these tags to it: <references/>, {{reflist}}, {{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}} (the last two are used to split long listings into columns). Three-column lists are inaccessible to users with smaller/laptop monitors and should be avoided. You may notice that two of these are included in the "markup" below the edit box; if you click on this it will add it to the page. Once you save your edit, inline citations enclosed in ref tags will be automatically generated in the new references section.

Annotations via the footnote system

Further information: Wikipedia:Footnotes

The footnote system is sometimes also used for annotations relating to points in the main text, for example explanatory notes or quotations that might be of further interest to readers. These may be kept in a section on their own, or be merged into the same section where references are listed. See Wikipedia:Layout for further information on the placement and naming of these sections.

Three suggestions

I have three suggestions to make this a better guideline:

• I think this article could use an example, similar to the examples in WP:CITE, directly after the two line introduction in How to Use.
• Don't need the material on citation templates, since this is covered by several other guides, and is specifically on OFF topic. (It's not about footnotes.)
• Similarly, you don't need the paragraph in the lead about "when to cite".

Any objections to these changes? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's happening again. We're getting instruction creep and redundancy across multiple MoS pages. A few weeks ago, we worked on reducing duplicate text at (at least) LAYOUT, FOOTNOTE, LEAD and some others. Now it's all creeping back in again, with multiple pages covering the same text, creating a maintenance nightmare. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:29, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

As I like to think you are aware, I am sympathetic to this cri de cœur, but other than make grandiose suggestions about wholesale changes in the administration of MOS that are likely to be ignored or opposed, or giving up on editing and just watching umpteen pages with numerous ongoing and complex debates, do you have any suggestions as to how this problem can be addressed by concerned wiki-citizens? Ben MacDui 11:14, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, you mean "Yes, please eliminate these redundant paragraphs", not "Yes, I object." Right? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 22:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, as I pointed out to you over at WP:CITE, the redundancy and off-topic material has been here a long time. It's not the result of recent edits. The redundant paragraph on citation templates dates back to before Jan. 2007. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 22:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Multiple footnotes

Occasionally I have multiple footnotes at the same point in the text. For example, in the Wikipedia article "Neon lamp", the original text stated that neon lamps had been used to construct electronic logic circuits. I provided multiple examples of such uses of neon lamps. But the result was a messy string of superscripts: " ...using neon lamps.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] ". In printed text, such multiple citations are treated simply by inserting a hyphen: " ...using neon lamps.[1-8] ". Does Wikipedia have such an option? Cwkmail (talk) 08:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

No. Also, having looked at the WP:Cite.php source code (the source code which generates the superscripted footnote numbers and later places the footnotes in the <References/> expansion), I'll say that implementing such an extension would be nontrivial. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 10:16, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

You could always just combine them into a single footnote and use <br /> to put them on separate lines. David Underdown (talk) 10:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Unless, of course, they are named refs which are re-used. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that is actually the opposite of what the editor means. They "are" separate reference, he just needs a neater way of displaying them. As such I don't think wikipeida supports it for the obvious reason that they need to be hot linked to the not in question. Hope I understand the problem correctly. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 10:34, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's too late at night for me, I don't understand that. Anyhow, examples:

• Undesired wikitext: text.<ref>note 1.</ref><ref name=something>note 2.</ref><ref>note 3.</ref> more text.<ref name=something />.
• Possible approach A - collect all non-reused refs: text.<ref>note 1;<br />^ note 3.</ref><ref name=something>note 2.</ref> more text.<ref name=something />.
• Possible approach B - collect the named ref also, but un-named in this instance and repeat it in another (probably named) ref: text.<ref>note 1;<br />^ note 2;<br />^ note 3.</ref> more text.<ref name=something>note 2.</ref>

Whether approach A or B (or neither) is more satisfactory would depend on the specifics of the note contents, I think. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Refname

I can't believe it! Two years on, and Refname remains the most poorly explained feature on WP, which is saying a lot. Can't someone make these instructions readily comprehensible, for a start ensuring that line breaks do not hide spaces in the example. Johnbod (talk) 09:45, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

• Then fix it - The page isn't protected. MrZaius^talk 03:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

How's about them other footnotes?

How do you insert the jumps from a top of a list to the footnotes at its base? Not a reference/not something that belongs in a seperate "footnotes" section, but something that is arbitrarily defined anywhere in the page. I know I've seen this tied to symbols like "†", where a user can click on the footnote indicator and be taken to the bottom of its section within a list, where some odd point is elucidated upon outside of a table. MrZaius^talk 03:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Group feature discussion?

I learned about the oft-requested group feature only through a roundabout discussion elsewhere. Where was the specification of this feature discussed? Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It is something that was kicked around for quite a while, see bugzilla:6271 (and linked bugs), the archives of this talk page, WP:VPR/PP, and so on. Every proposal proposed a slightly different way of doing it, finally someone just picked one (IMO probably the best of the proposals I've seen) and implemented it. Anomie⚔ 12:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

We need to be able to define the tag though, otherwise we have to use artificial group names. I'll post into that "bug". Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "define the tag"? Anomie⚔ 18:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

BTW, what's the syntax for grouping using the {{reflist}} tag? The obvious doesn't seem to work. Maury Markowitz (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist|group=whatever}}. No quotes around the group name. Anomie⚔ 18:48, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Reference punctuation

Its been a long standing AWB feature request to automatically move punctuation before the ref and would seem to be preferred method for most Wikipedians. Then there are issues with punctuation being placed before and after refs.^[1][2]. Can we abandon the Nature style? — Dispenser 01:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

It's probably better to discuss this on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources, where it has been extensively debated numerous times in the past. The consensus, I think, is that no consensus exists. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Concerning meta-footnotes

Separating commentary from citations in footnotes is a nice option to recommend, but what's the point of footnoting footnotes? I can't see that it has any benefit at all. If a comment requires a citation, it could just be included in the same footnote as the comment. It's more in line with real life reference standards and doesn't require the reader to be bumped down the page an extra time.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:32, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Because then you have your references all mixed in with your footnotes. You may not mind that, but some people do. It's especially useful now that we can have separate sections for Cite.php-generated footnotes versus references, instead of having to have them jumbled all together in one section (or having to do the footnotes manually). Anomie⚔ 18:35, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Separation of commentary and citations may seem entirely benefitial at first glance, but it adds plenty of code quirkiness and doesn't adhere to any major reference standard that I've ever heard of. I've never heard of an academic discipline that footnotes footnotes, even those who mix parenthetical references with explanatory footnotes. The guideline should at least point out that it's just as logical to cite the comment in plain text as with a meta-footnote. I have made a suggestion in the guideline that provides an alternative in this direction.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Name them hyphenated as ref-tags

13-Nov-2008: I suggest formally naming the construct of "<ref>...</ref>" as a ref-tag (hyphenated). The guideline "Wikipedia:Footnotes" contains numerous details, where I was desperately reading for distinctions between terms. Complicating the text was the loose term "ref tag" or "<ref> tag" used with multiple meanings. As you likely know, HTML refers to angle-bracket names as "tags", so "<ref>" is a tag, and in HTML (or XML) the "<ref> tag" means just 5 characters ("<ref>"). However, defining the term "ref-tag" (to be the whole construct "<ref>...</ref>") would avoid using the term "<ref> tag" which can be confusing to Internet software people. Naturally, these days, when defining a new term (such as "ref-tag"), we should beware if Google (which highly favors Wikipedia) can find it in searches: well, Google (which has word-splitting biases) will also match "ref-tag" to non-hyphenated "ref tag" but that's ok. An alternative term could have been the one-word "reftag" but Google has already biased "reftag" with word-splitting to match "ref tag" (2 words), plus 12 thousand other webpages use one word "reftag" as some other techno term, so reftag is more trouble in Google searches. (BTW: So far, Google searches "reflist" as the one word, not "ref list".) As for wiki-editing, a search for "ref-tag" finds it precisely, and then "ref" can be used to mean referee or some other word as it currently does in over 13,400 Wikipedia pages. The implications:

• define "ref-tag" as construct "<ref>...</ref>";
• use the term "ref-tag" to replace: reference tag, ref tag, etc.;
• refer to the ends of the construct as the "<ref> & </ref> tags" (not "ref tags");
• quit using the term "<ref> tag" which in HTML means "<ref>";
• know that Google searches "ref" as matching "referee" or "reference" etc.

I hope we can get concensus to easily define term "ref-tag" as hyphenated, and quit stating "<ref> tag" which can be confusing to Internet software people (as meaning only the tag "<ref>"). Thanks. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:02, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Double straight quotes versus single straight quotes for named references

A user has contacted me to say that it's fine to use single straight quotes for named references e.g. <ref name='hello world'>interesting link etc.</ref> as well as straight double quotes e.g. <ref name="hello world">interesting link etc.</ref>. From testing here it seems that single quotes fall over if the reference name has an apostrophe e.g. <ref name='John's view'>interesting link etc.</ref> but otherwise work correctly? For me the WP:REFNAME documentation doesn't allow straight single quotes, or does it, or indeed should it? Thanks Rjwilmsi 23:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

A "single straight quote" and a "straight apostrophe" are the same character, U+0027. So when the parser sees 'John's view', it sees the quoted string 'John' followed by some extra characters, and it ends up failing.

In fact, the parser will also accept no quotes as long as the value contains only printable ASCII characters excluding space, straight double quote ("), dollar sign ($), percent sign (%), straight single quote ('), plus sign (+), equals sign (=), and backslash (\); it also cannot actually contain the greater-than sign (>) as that will close the tag, but the parser would accept it were that not the case. With either variety of quote, the only restriction is that it cannot contain whichever quote is being used and cannot contain the less-than sign (<). If you can read PCRE regular expressions, all this is in the MW_ATTRIBS_REGEX in Sanitizer.php. When used as {{#tag:ref|...|name=...}}, the name can contain anything any template parameter can contain.

Yes, that means <ref name='the "real" thing'> would be correctly parsed, while <ref name="the "real" thing"> would fail. Some screw-ups will blow up, some will "work" by ignoring the attempted name completely, and some will "work" by pretending you said <ref name="name">; the last is a side effect of the parser converting HTML constructs like <select multiple> into XHTML <select multiple="multiple">.

WP:REFNAME at the moment doesn't specifically say you can use single quotes; whether it should or not, I don't know. Anomie⚔ 00:32, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

WP:Update?

We mentioned a couple of months ago that this page probably shouldn't go into the monthly updates at WP:Update because it has more of a "how-to" feeling to it than all the pages there, including WP:Layout. I'm just double-checking; my feeling is that WP:Footnotes works just fine as it is, but I want to make sure there's no confusion about what kind of page it is. Look at the other style pages at WP:Update and you'll see that they don't generally have code, they tend to have minimal examples, and they're generally prescriptive ("editors should do this", not "here's how you do this"). Does anyone want to go a different direction with WP:Footnotes? Much of the "prescriptive" content here is already in WP:Layout, WP:CITE an WP:MOS. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:40, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Location of section "Footnotes" is in question

Please join to discussion Wikipedia talk:Layout#Change location of section "Notes, Footnotes, or References".--Namazu-tron (talk) 00:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Multiple footnotes needed to verify a single sentence

Hi, I'd like to clarify how foot notes can legitimately be used: If I have two sources that are basically in agreement, but each provides slightly different details, can I construct a sentence based on both in combination, and cite them at the end of the sentence? This feels like common sense, and I'm sure I've seen it often done. The particular example we're trying to resolve is one sentence at Triple Goddess:

Triple female fate divinities, typically "spinners" of destiny, are attested all over Europe from the Iron Age onward and in Bronze Age Anatolia.^[1][2][3]

1. West, M. L. (2007) Indo-European Poetry and Myth. Oxford University Press. pp. 379-385.

2. Petreska, Vesna (2005) "Demons of Fate in Macedonian Folk Beliefs" in Gábor Klaniczay & Éva Pócs (eds.) Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology. Central European Press. p. 225.

3. Georges Dumézil in 1970 controversially proposed an Indo-European "trivalent" goddess was the origin of a number of later goddesses, including the Iranian Anāhitā, the Vedic Sarasvatī and the Roman Juno; in each of these goddesses resided three qualities corresponding to the three functions of the major trinity of Indo-European gods: magico-religious, martial and fertility. These goddesses expressed the three qualities through different aspects or epithets. (Nāsstrōm, Britt-Mari (1999) "Freyja — The Trivalent Goddess" in Sand, Erik Reenberg & Sørensen, Jørgen Podemann (eds.) Comparative Studies in History of Religions: Their Aim, Scope and Validity. Museum Tusculanum Press. pp. 62-4.)

Footnote 3 is simply a "further info" footnote, and not really relevant to this question. The issue is that neither West nor Petreska (the first two footnotes) individually give all the details in question; Petreska for example doesn't mention Anatolia, nor does she use the phrase "all over Europe" (although she does list a large number of European countries). West, on the other hand, doesn't specifically state when the European attested deities date from, and we have to turn to Petreska to find they come from the Iron Age.

I believe it's valid, common practice and common sense to simply cite both together at the end of the sentence, and this avoids awkward sentence structures or multiple repeated footnotes within the same sentence. If the two authors weren't in such close agreement it might be seen as synthesis, but as it is they are in complete agreement and merely providing different points of detail. I also believe both citations could be useful to readers who wish to research further. Those who are interested can find extensive summaries of both sources here, but I'm not asking you to resolve our dispute, just give an indication of how footnotes should/can be used in principle. Have I misunderstood their use? Fuzzypeg★ 13:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

In this case it may be valid use of multiple footnotes (in most cases it tends to be duplication of information e.g. Bush announces farewell (1- NY times 2- Washington Post 3- The Guardian, etc.). My only doubt would be whether your collation of arguments from different sources would be a problem with WP:SYNTHESIS, but that is something else. Arnoutf (talk) 13:43, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

You may like to consider (a) combining all three footnotes together as just one, which would reduce the length of the superscripts and brackets at the end of the sentence; and (b) having a separate section that gives the full book details for all books used in the article, with the footnotes being reduced in size to just the short-form, as can be seen in that case of similar book references in Peterloo Massacre, for example. This last point may be of particular use especially when you are going to use different pages from the same books in different places throughout the article, but would also probably help even if they are used once if you combine the footnotes together into just one.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

After checking the summary of the sources you linked, I'd say you're 100% good with that sentence. And it's not even close to WP:SYN, because you're just summarizing what the sources already plainly state and not drawing any conclusions. Anomie⚔ 17:41, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify what my suggestion would end up looking a bit like, here is the text:

Triple female fate divinities, typically "spinners" of destiny, are attested all over Europe from the Iron Age onward and in Bronze Age Anatolia.^[1]

1. West, M.L. (2007) pages 379-385; Petreska, V. (2005) page 225; Furthermore, Georges Dumézil in 1970 controversially proposed an Indo-European "trivalent" goddess was the origin of a number of later goddesses, including the Iranian Anāhitā, the Vedic Sarasvatī and the Roman Juno; in each of these goddesses resided three qualities corresponding to the three functions of the major trinity of Indo-European gods: magico-religious, martial and fertility. These goddesses expressed the three qualities through different aspects or epithets. (Nāsstrōm, B-M (1999) pages 62-64.)

The full references used in shortened form would be given in a separate section reserved for books, etc. In these full references, pages numbers would not be given, as they have been supplied in the short-form footnote. You may be able to tie the references together a bit more than the "furthermore" I've added.  DDStretch  (talk) 18:00, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Asterisks in {{note label}}

The single most used reference label in English typography is the asterisk (*), but these templates don't seem to allow it to be used as a label. This really ought to be fixed. In the meantime, I'll be removing these templates from a couple of articles. —Michael Z. 2008-12-27 20:39 z

I strongly oppose such an idea for 2 reasons.

1. The numbers automatically renumber if a footnote is removed, the sequence of asterisks should also automatically be updated, for that we need a huge set of asterisk signs for footnotes in a predetermined order.
2. An asterisk for a footnote is fine if there are only a few footnotes; after the first occasion alternative symbols (e.g. + o etc.) have to be used, or multiplications (*, **, ***). As many Wikipedia list over 100 footnotes it is completely impossible to use these signs, where numbers remain more or less relevant. Arnoutf (talk) 20:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I realize that this is the talk page referred to by many templates. I'm referring to {{note}}, {{note label}}, {{ref}} and {{ref label}}.

My point is that entering an asterisk in the label parameter of {note label} is broken—at the beginning of a line, wikitext turns the asterisk into a bullet point, and entering <nowiki>*</nowiki> doesn't work. The example in question is the table notes at Romanization of Russian#Transliteration table—an editor recently rewrote it to use ° instead of *, but it's stupid to invent new conventions as workarounds for template bugs. Better to form all the links manually, because we are supposed to favour readers over editors.

(Since you mention it, automatically using symbols may be useful for short lists of notes, like this example. The traditional order is *, †, ‡, §, ‖, ¶. The last three are unfamiliar, so it may be more useful to support *, †, ‡, **, ††, ‡‡, ***, †††, ‡‡‡, instead, or as an option. But this is not what I am complaining about.) —Michael Z. 2008-12-27 21:48 z

Ok for use in tables I would support indeed it. (BTW I know the order with the first three or four being common, but with 100+ references as with citations that would still be unwieldy going into many repetitions of the symbol - so this style should never be used for citation type references). Arnoutf (talk) 13:17, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Why the brackets?

The brackets around the superscript numbers^[1] are visually jarring and break up the flow of reading when used anywhere but after punctuation. What is their purpose? Can't we do away with the brackets¹ and just use the numbers alone? It would be much less obtrusive, cutting down the increased space between words by about half, which greatly improves readability. Further, this is standard practice so more readers are used to scanning past footnotes displayed this way. I can see how this could be useful in cases where multiple refs run together, but those are special cases and should be dealt with accordingly. – flamurai (t) 07:51, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that the Spanish Wikipedia uses the style without brackets. For an example, see [15]. As can be seen in that article, the problem of multiple refs occurring in direct succession (refs 7 and 8) has been solved by spacing. The French Wikipedia uses superscript numbers without brackets as well: [16]. Printed English books tend to use numbers without brackets. I am not sure why we do it differently here. Perhaps users feel that the brackets aid visibility, or help differentiate citations from mathematical notation. Jayen466 19:10, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Resizing references

Some editors are using WP:FOOT#Resizing references as justification to remove {{reflist}} from articles that have fewer than ten references. The current phrasing is somewhat unclear. For myself, I stick {{reflist}} into most articles I edit regardless of how many entries there are. Is it the intent of this section to justify removal of {{reflist}} where there are less than ten entries? Or is it rather simply a rule of thumb that {{reflist}} is commonly used when there are more than ten entries? If the latter, could the section perhaps be modified to remove the basis for editors making a point of removing the template from articles that fall below the non-threshhold? older ≠ wiser 03:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

<references /> should be used by default, because references should not be resized just to resize them. {{reflist}} should only be used when there is a justifiable reason to lower the size the references, which is generally considered having at least 10 well formatted references, not just because some people think they look nicer. The current threshold has been discussed several times recently (see archives), and thus far, 10 was considered a good one. General rule of thumb: less than 10, use the regular <references />, more than 10, you can use {{reflist}}, more than 20, you can split to two columns. This should be more strongly worded, instead of people sticking a two column reflist on an article with only 4 references, which just looks really silly and like someone is trying to make the references hard to notice. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 18:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is this a problem? Bkonrad, if you really think it looks so ugly, then why don't ou just source the hell out of the page and make it bigger than 10 sources. Or is it that you just can't find enough sources for the article, and you want to cover that up by making it look "nicer" with the Reflist? Is that so? Well then, it should be merged with something else or brutally deleted (in the words of Jimmy). Jimmy Wales is the creator of Wikipedia and you are not, therefore you will not alter his rules. – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 18:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think artificially increasing the number of footnotes for the sake of looks is a good idea in the slightest. Artw (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

As for implying that articles need 10 references or they should be deleted, um, no. Artw (talk) 19:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The hell? That's not what I said! – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 20:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Bkonrad, I think you are missing the point. The purpose of <references /> is to show the refs that come in small numbers. 10 is a fine rule of thumb. I agree with Collectonian, this needs to be made clear in the guideline. Any suggestions? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:50, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the guidelines are clear that there are no guidelines, see below. Artw (talk) 19:24, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"The choice between {{reflist}} and <references /> is a matter of style; Wikipedia does not have a general rule." Artw (talk) 19:20, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Um, asking for reiteration is kind of the goal of this discussion ... Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:40, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

So are you all (Sessh, Jump Guru and Collectonian) saying that the thousands of articles that currently use {{reflist}} and have fewer that ten references are incorrect and they should be corrected? Are you also saying that the many editors who have either added or edited those articles and did not change {{reflist}} to <references /> are mistaken or that their practice do not count in determining consensus here? Why should <references /> be presumed to be the default? I don't think that the current guidance actually supports what Collectonian states above: {{reflist}} should only be used when there is a justifiable reason to lower the size the references, which is generally considered having at least 10 well formatted references, not just because some people think they look nicer. What the guidance says is simply that {{reflist}} is common when there is a long list of references, not that it should not be used when there are less. older ≠ wiser 20:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I get it. You're taking advantage of what it doesn't say, do you think that this page is supposed to list every single, little, tiny, microscopic, piece of crap? The only reason you're argueing with us is so that you can stylize the articles you created. Oh yeah, if it doesn't say anything specific that have to change the templates due to size issues, how come before you said you wanted to change the rule because it does? Y'know, instead of argueing about how crappy your articles would look now with the <references />, why don't you just work more on them now and give them a measely 10 reliable sources, then your article would look nice with the {{reflist}}. You're being very selfish. – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 22:27, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Excuse me! Why are you turning this into a personal attack? I'm seeking clarification about what this guideline is supposed to mean. Some editors are using this guideline to remove {{reflist}} from articles. I don't see that this guideline provides any basis for such removal. You (and Collectonian and Sessh) appear to be interpreting this guideline in a way that is at variance with many other editors as evidenced by the thousands of articles with fewer than ten references that use {{reflist}}. You might want to consider toning down you ad hominem attacks. Until the last day I was completely (and blissfully) unaware of your existence. I'm not sure why you consider yourself to be such an authority on [my] crappy articles. older ≠ wiser 22:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I lost my temper. : ) Why don't you just use the <references /> and then the {{Reflist}} after 10 references, so simple!, unless you don't have sources then it needs to be either merged or deleted. :-D Just give it up. – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 22:48, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

You ask why -- as I said above, I think it looks bad for the references in various articles to be of differing sizes? Not only bad, but reflects poorly on the quality and consistency of Wikipedia (which admittedly is pretty happenstance). I (and apparently many others) find it much easier to always use {{reflist}} rather than doing some conditional calculus. Why do you expect me to just give it up? How about if you and your cohorts just give it up? older ≠ wiser 23:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

How about if you respect more experienced editors then you are, and respect the guidlines. I'm going to eat my Top Ramen, while you mindlesly blabber about how much you want to stylize your articles. – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 23:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it's safe to say that Bkonrad is the only editor who is against this practice for personal reasons. Guidelines don't exist just to be ignored. Anyway, we have number consensus, so what should we clarify Jump Guru? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:29, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Who might these more experienced editors be that you refer to? Certainly not you three. As for Sessh, I quite assure you that I alone am not responsible for all the thousands of articles with less than ten references that use {{reflist}}. That you three cohorts, who all came here together based on your communications here and here all agree with each other does not constitute any sort of meaningful consensus with regards to this page. older ≠ wiser 00:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Experienced editors? Have you ever gotten an article to a GA? Well we have, don't know about you. Right now i'm working on Santa Inoue's article, which i'm planning for to be at that rank. How many articles have you gotten to GA Sesshomaru? (not Sessh, by the way) – J U M P G U R U ^{■ask㋐㋜㋗■} 00:58, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

A couple. Beelzebub (Sand Land) was my first (then it got redirected). I helped Himura Kenshin, Sagara Sanosuke, and and others meet that standard. Tried doing the same for Naruto Uzumaki and Pegasus Seiya up until recently, still gettin' there ;) Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 01:47, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

*Note Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) - I was the one that helped User:Tintor2 obtain GA status for Sagara Sanosuke and not you (unless you standards for "help" are quite low) - please look at the article history, [17], so I believe you should not take credit (I have hundreds, if making relatively few edits counted). I suggest you remove Sagara Sanosuke from your list here. (I have not looked at the other articles for which you take credit. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 17:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

*Note I am very much aware thank you very much. If you actually saw my past discussions with Tintor2, you'll find that there have been plenty of conversations on improving Sano and others. One article I won't take credit for though is Fullmetal Alchemist, since I did little to no effort in giving Tintor2 a hand. Please stop thinking that I'm exaggerating my statements or something, and assume good faith for once in your life. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:04, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

*You underestimate my knowledge and involvement with the article. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Swell. That you guys are experienced writing about trivial topics doesn't count for much. That you show such disrespect for other editors says volumes more about you that any articles you might have written. older ≠ wiser 02:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow, it looks like some people here desperately need to re-read WP:CIVIL. Just because you have 9000 edits or enjoy playing the GA game doesn't make you better than anyone else here, and even if that were the case it still wouldn't excuse belittling other editors. And it's particularly amusing in this case, since the implications made above are so very wrong.

FWIW, I don't see any need for supposed "clarification" here; in fact, I would support removing the arbitrary "10 reference" language to discourage this type of wikilawyering. Anomie⚔ 03:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

What a wonderful New Year's gift, how amusing. Jumpguru, and whomsoever else, perhaps you wish to turn your belittling eye in my direction. I've never produced a GA or FA or anything close, in all my 8,000 edits. By the criteria above, I'm worthless. However, I'm happy when I add three or even one reference(s) to an article, and I regularly add {{reflist}} to articles where myself or other enthusiatic editors contributed <ref> tags. Does this thread have any connection to reality? Delete any article with less than ten sources? Franamax (talk) 04:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that I feel sorry for Bkonrad, and that if people are seriously fighting over reflist, then they are probably not doing what they are supposed to be doing, which is working on this encyclopedia. Ottava Rima (talk) 06:20, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

• Perhaps folks should be aware that using {{reflist|2}} and further splits plays absolute havoc on smaller than average screens (making the references largely unreadable), and dramatically increases pageload time, especially on dial-up or other internet connections that are not high-speed. These should be avoided unless absolutely necessary for accessibility reasons. Risker (talk) 06:39, 1 January 2009 (UTC) I have commented directly on JumpGuru's talk page about his disappointing treatment of fellow editors on this page.

Does {{reflist|colwidth=40em}} or similar syntax have the same effect? Jayjg ^(talk) 06:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Good question, Jayjg, I am not sure. Are you aware of any articles that use that style so we could check it out? I'd think we could find a few editors with appropriately small screens and/or dialup connections to test the differences. Risker (talk) 06:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Err, actually I use that style on all my FAs, GAs, and most other articles. I was advised to use it because it specifically handled the issue of small screens. Jayjg ^(talk) 07:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

(EC) I believe it does though maybe like Risker said, get someone to test? Yes, I strongly prefer seeing reflist only be used for at lesat more than 10 references, since resizing references to a smaller font causes accessibility issues as well as appears to belittle the references. The guideline here on resizing seems to support that view, however as I already noted to at least some of the parties above, it is not worth edit warring over. Some folks just run around replacing reflist with references under the claim of "modernization" (which I do believe is false, as if reflist were now modern, references wouldn't exist) or just an automatic thing because they believe it "looks" better. Either way, using splitting (either via reflist or by div wrapping) definitely should be reserved for longer lists due to the issues it can cause some readers. Of course, splitting also doesn't work in IE at all, so its primarily something for a minority of readers. I will say, I bowed out of this discussion after the way things went above. While I do feel it should be clarified here and that it should be a more strongly followed guideline to not just resize references for cosmetic reasons/personal preferences, the attacks against Bkonrad were beyond unnecessary, as was the remark that if he can't find 10 references for the article, it should be deleted. In general, one could argue that any notable topic should be able to have 10 references, but that isn't always the case (see Hershey Creamery Company, an article I more than doubled in content, but that still only has four references; certainly a notable company however). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 07:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Risker - The reflist|2 and up variety are intended mostly for standard harvard note style (Author, Year, Page), which would result in very tiny notations. Thus, if used as intended, there should be little difficulty with formatting. I know because I use monitors of different with. However, I must note that when there are over 50 references, long columns of references is absolutely insane and destroys the flow of a work. Ottava Rima (talk) 07:45, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I tried to investigate this claim of slowdowns due to the use of a multi-column reflist when it was brought up several months ago, but even using the same browser I could not reproduce it. I also note that it adds negligibly to the length of the page (only 95 bytes!), so the speed of the Internet connection should really have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Another thing to test is whether following the instructions at Template:Reflist#Disabling multiple columns for your account cures the issue. Anomie⚔ 12:56, 1 January 2009 (UTC)