// sorry for cross-posting
Hello,
a new feature called Reference Previews [1] will soon be released as a beta
feature to more wikis. The planned deployment date is October 24 [2] around
15:00 UTC.
As you might guess from the name, this feature gives you a preview of
references in the article text. That means, you can look up a reference
without jumping down to the bottom of the page. If specified, the preview
also shows the type of a reference: whether it’s a web, journal, book or
news reference. This can help readers evaluate the trustworthiness of a
citation more quickly. If you'd like to know more about this feature,
please visit the project page.[1]
Reference Previews originated from a wish from the German-speaking wiki
community to have the preview functionality that already exists in many
wikis integrated into MediaWiki. Coordination and implementation of this
feature were done by the Technical Wishes team at Wikimedia Deutschland,
with support from the WMF’s Reading Web team. The design for the feature
was developed by the WMF. The feature is part of the MediaWiki Popups
extension [3], which is also used for the Page Previews feature.[4]
Reference Previews have been a beta feature on German and Arabic Wikipedia
for some months already, with around 3,000 users trying it out. Since then,
a few bugs were fixed, and it’s been made easier to enable the beta
feature. Now Reference Previews will become a beta feature on all
Wikipedias and on three Wikivoyage projects.[2]
We’re inviting everyone to give the feature a try: Please activate the beta
feature [5] and let us know what you think on the central feedback page
[6]! A big thanks to everyone who gave feedback so far.
If the feature isn’t available on your wiki [2] and you want to have it as
a beta feature, please reach out to us on the central feedback page.[6]
For the Technical Wishes team,
Johanna
[1] project page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews
[2] deployment roadmap:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMDE_Technical_Wishes/ReferencePreviews#Dep…
[3] Popups extension:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Popups
[4] Page Previews:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Page_Previews
[5] go to Preferences > Beta features, e.g.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeat…
[6]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help_talk:Reference_Previews
Johanna Strodt
Project Manager Community Communications Technical Wishlist, Wikimedia
Deutschland