[WikiEN-l] Re: Unobstrusive ways of citing authority

Sun Jan 25 14:38:45 UTC 2004

> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Unobtrusive Ways of Citing Authority
>
> There are several ways of adding citations that do not clutter up the 
> text.
>
> 1. A superscript which point to a footnote.
>
> 2. A hypertext link to the source like
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_wet] which will display [1].
>
> 3. Using comments while editing that do not show up in the displayed 
> text:
>
> <!--  via Wikipedia: Pierre de Fermat
>
>       last updated: 2004-01-01T18:44:37Z
>       193.230.240.14

Yes. Perhaps nothing more is needed. The paucity
of citations is mainly due to custom and/or preference
rather than to technology. However...

1) is, as far as I know, currently hard to achieve
conveniently and reliably. Internal Wiki links have
to point to a section (and break if the article is
reorganized or the section heading is changed).
This can be done in HTML but I've gotten spoiled
by Wiki markup and am unlikely to put in the effort
myself. Furthermore, how do you keep the superscript
numerals sequential as the article gets edited?

2) only works for Website references, and there
seems to be disagreement about whether it is
proper to include these within the body of an
article. There is certainly a preference for putting
them all in an == External Links == section.
(By the way: current custom is to name the
section "External Link" when there's only one
and pluralize it as soon as there are two, meaning
a Wiki-link to this section is guaranteed to break).

1 and 2 also have the problem of how to
return to where you were in the text after you
read the reference. So, they're too obtrusive if
you wanted to ignore the reference... and even
more obtrusive if you want to read it.

3) is fine, and I'm starting to use this myself,
EXCEPT that a) the presence of references
isn't visible, and b) it is necessary to edit the
article to see the reference.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at world.std.com alternate: 
dpbsmith at alum.mit.edu
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