Thomas Dalton wrote: I had the notion once of a reference: namespace, used just like the template: namespace but solely for references. That way instead of having every last detail duplicated in every article that used that ref you could have <ref name="foo">{{reference:foo}}</ref> or perhaps for larger references like books, <ref name="foo">{{reference:foo}}, p. 21-22</ref> If we wanted to be daring we could have the <ref> tags be automatically generated for transclusions like this, perhaps using a bar to tack additions on like a parameter. {{reference:foo|, p. 21-22}} for example. This would have the benefit of: *preventing duplication of effort between articles that use the same reference *maintaining a more uniform format for reference text *allowing easier tracking of which articles use which references It would have the downside of: *making it harder to find the text of the reference if you want to edit it, much like with regular templates *requiring some sort of naming convention that is consistent, unique, but not so elaborate as to make it pointless to put the reference in a separate page *cross-article references could be more vulnerable to subtle vandalism or honest mistakes. If one article used a source to cite one fact and another article used the same source to cite another fact, and then someone who only knows about its use at the first article fiddles with it, it might invalidate its use in the second article. This is just an idea I kicked around once, there's probably all sorts of other problems I haven't thought of yet.

Perhaps this is cheating, and it seems to upset some people, but I basically use Harvard Referencing within the <ref> templates, and give the full citation in the ==References== section. So, within the wikitext, you have: "Blah blah blah.<ref>Kilmer, pg. 7</ref> Blah blah." and at the bottom of the page you have the full information for Kilmer. This also makes it easier to put in page numbers for books sources. The downside is that you can sometimes get long lists of different page numbers for the same book, which takes up space and looks somewhat messy, but I figure it's at the bottom of the article anyway. Makemi On 12/10/06, SPUI &lt;drspui(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

Thomas Dalton wrote: See Bug 5997. -- Alphax - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax Contributor to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia "We make the internet not suck" - Jimbo Wales Public key: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Alphax/OpenPGP

Messedrocker has a pretty good suggestion, there, I think. Difficult to say, but I *think* that setup might make more sense for newcomers? In addition to fixing the problems originally brought up in this thread. Given the number of lines of text these things might entail, it might be easier for parsing and human readability if there's something just a little more elaborate to delineate the start of each ref. I'm not sure what that would be, though. On 12/9/06, James Hare &lt;messedrocker(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

On 12/10/06, Ray Saintonge &lt;saintonge(a)telus.net&gt; wrote: You are free to do that. Certianly it is what I do It isn't garbage formatting. It is a template designed to make reference more standard and less work and it manages both for those who learn how to use it. For the rest of us there is long hand. -- geni

Sam Korn wrote: Oh really? :-) {{subst:cite web |url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/389438794343.html |title=Foo panel disagress with bar |first=Foo |last=Bar |date=2006-10-17 |publisher=The Sunday Times |accessdate=October 17 |accessyear=2006}} inserts the following verbatim into the wiki source of the article: { #if: {{#if: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/389438794343.html | {{#if: Foo panel disagress with bar |1}}}} ||Error on call to [[Template:cite web]]: Parameters '''url''' and '''title''' must be specified }}{{ #if: {{{archiveurl|}}}{{{archivedate|}}} | {{#if: {{#if: {{{archiveurl|}}}| {{#if: {{{archivedate|}}} |1}}}} ||Error on call to [[template:cite web]]: Parameters '''archiveurl''' and '''archivedate''' must be both specified or both omitted }} }}{{#if: {{{author|}}}Bar | {{#if: {{{authorlink|}}} | [[{{{authorlink}}}|{{#if: Bar | Bar{{#if: Foo | , Foo }} | {{{author}}} }}]] | {{#if: Bar | Bar{{#if: Foo | , Foo }} | {{{author}}} }} }} }}{{#if: {{{author|}}}Bar | {{#if: {{{coauthors|}}}| <nowiki>;</nowiki>&#32;{{{coauthors}}} }} }}{{#if: {{{author|}}}Bar| {{#if: 2006-10-17 | &#32;(2006-10-17) | {{#if: {{{year|}}} | {{#if: {{{month|}}} | &#32;({{{month}}} {{{year}}}) | &#32;({{{year}}}) }} }} |}} }}{{#if: Bar{{{author|}}} | .&#32;}}{{#if: {{{archiveurl|}}} | {{#if: {{{archiveurl|}}} | {{#if: Foo panel disagress with bar | [{{{archiveurl}}} Foo panel disagress with bar] }}}} | {{#if: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/389438794343.html | {{#if: Foo panel disagress with bar | [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/389438794343.html Foo panel disagress with bar] }}}} }}{{#if: {{{language|}}} | &#32;<span style="font-size: 0.95em; font-weight: bold; color:#555; position: relative;">({{{language}}})</span> }}{{#if: {{{format|}}} | &#32;({{{format|}}}) }}{{#if: {{{work|}}} | .&#32;''{{{work}}}'' }}{{#if: {{{pages|}}} | &#32;{{{pages}}} }}{{#if: The Sunday Times | .&#32;The Sunday Times{{#if: {{{author|}}}Bar | | {{#if: 2006-10-17{{{year|}}}{{{month|}}} || }} }} }}{{#if: {{{author|}}}Bar ||{{#if: 2006-10-17 | &#32;(2006-10-17) | {{#if: {{{year|}}} | {{#if: {{{month|}}} | &#32;({{{month}}} {{{year}}}) | &#32;({{{year}}}) }} }} }} }}.{{#if: {{{archivedate|}}} | &#32;Archived from [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/389438794343.html the original] on [[{{{archivedate}}}]]. }}{{#if: October 17 | &#32;Retrieved on [[October 17]]{{#if: 2006 | , [[2006]] }}. }}{{#if: {{{accessmonthday|}}} | &#32;Retrieved on {{{accessmonthday}}}, 2006. }}{{#if: {{{quote|}}} | &nbsp;“{{{quote}}}” }}

Or the lack of a recursive subst option. There should be a way to get MediaWiki to include just the code that is actually displayed, so automatically substing any subtemplates, resolving any if statements when you make the edit, rather than each time it's displayed, etc. something like {{totalsubst:template}}.

How did I not know that page existed? Is it not linked to from anywhere?

On 12/10/06, Ligulem &lt;ligulem(a)pobox.com&gt; wrote: ... allied with an absurdly complicated template syntax. :-) Have done so. Thanks. -- Sam

Sam Korn wrote: Escellent! I'm glad to see that some forces of sanity are still alive. Ec