[Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

Tue Sep 5 03:15:46 UTC 2006

Francis Tyers wrote:

> In fact, this brings up an interesting point, having <book> and 
> <article> for specifics (they tend to be long), and then having 
> <ref> for miscellaneous stuff.

When anybody says we "have to" introduce completely new markup or 
we "have to" wait for Wikidata to be implemented, then I know it's 
just an excuse for doing nothing.

Suppose you define a way to identify a pre-defined reference, e.g. 
the Wikipedia Standard Reference Numbering (WSRN), you could set 
up a server of your own where the reference database is kept and 
just link to that from a template.  It would be no different from 
Egil Kvaleberg's map link server and the {{coor}} template.

  WSRN = 1   --> "The Wiki Way", ISBN 0-201-71499-X
  WSRN = 2   --> "The Hive", article in "The Atlantic Monthly",
                 http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia
  WSRN = 3   --> ...

and a template {{wsrn|3}} to make a reference.

If you implement the database and fill it with contents, I can 
write the template.

Here are two ideas for how to populate the database:

1. Copy the entire catalog of the Library of Congress and hope 
they don't mind your doing so.  You can use the LCCN as the key, 
but this won't give you any reference to The Hive article, unless 
the LoC starts to catalog The Atlantic Monthly on an article 
level.

2. Download the latest dump and extract all the <ref>...</ref> 
tags currently used in the English Wikipedia.  Begin with the 
works that are most frequently referenced.

-- 
  Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se