Bryan Derksen wrote:
Once upon a time long long ago I remember putting in a
feature request for
a simple "footnote" markup, along the lines of adding [[Note:blah blah
blah]] anywhere in the article and having it turn into a superscripted
number linking to an anchor for the text "blah blah blah" down at the very
bottom of the page. Something like that could be suitable for references
too, though it wouldn't be nice for making multiple references to the same
source scattered throughout an article. Maybe a [[Ref:blah blah blah]]
markup that automatically combines identical "blah blah" text into the same
reference at the bottom?
I would suggest a markup along the lines of [[ref:id:position]],
accompanied by a separate markup of the form,
[note:id]fullreference[/foot], where "id" is a unique indentifier of
the reference, and "fullreference" is the full reference. For example:
[[ref:Nolan:p. 12]]
and:
[note:Nolan]Hamilton Nolan,
"[http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=226978&site=3 UFCW seeking
to unionize Canada Wal-Mart workers]," ''PR Week'', November 8,
2004.[/note]
One problem with a simple [[Ref:blah blah blah]] markup is that it
doesn't provide a way to put wiki markup into the reference, such as
italicization or hyperlinks. The syntax I've described above would
also make it possible to have multiple references in a text to the
same source. For example, there might be several places where the
text references the Nolan article, e.g., [ref:Nolan:p. 7],
[ref:Nolan:p. 12], or just [ref:Nolan]. Each reference would point to
the same note. It would also be possible to choose different options
for display of the notes. Someone who doesn't want to see them at all
could have the option of turning them off in user preferences. In the
event that a print version is published, there could be the
additional option of displaying notes as footnotes or as endnotes.
I think having a footnote markup is a good idea, but the syntax
should be sufficiently robust to accommodate all of the things that
are currently done with footnotes in traditional publications such as
books and academic journals. And I sympathize with people who don't
want to feel obligated to footnote everything in Wikipedia, but
personally I find references extremely valuable. Also, references can
be used to help resolve editing disputes. I don't think anyone should
be *obligated* to use references, but it would be a step forward if
the software provided this capability as an option.
--Sheldon Rampton