[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Mediawiki-l] that awful <ref> syntax

[Charlotte Webb]

On 12/12/07, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
> Um, where else would you put ref syntax and material if not in the edit box?
> The other, secret edit box?

On the topic of secret[1] boxes, it would be possible to do something
like this as an ugly hack:

> [[Miss Libby]]'s car is green.<ref name="foo"/> [[Billy]] likes
> to drink [[soda]].<ref name="bar"/>
>
> ==References==
> <div style="display:none;">
> <ref name="foo">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref>
> <ref name="bar">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref>
> </div>
> {{reflist}} <!-- contains "<references/>" plus
>              some petty formatting options -->
>
> [[Category:Living people]]
> {{stub}}

The one obvious downside[2] is that even the invisible instance of the
<ref> populates the alphabetical upward anchor ("go back") links that
appear at the beginning of each line of the ref-list at the end, which
would look something like:

> 1. ^ a b [actual text of ref].

(that is...)

> <li id="_note-foo">^
> <a href="#_ref-foo_0" title=""><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a>
> <a href="#_ref-foo_1" title=""><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a>
> [html to produce actual text of ref]
> </li>

As a result the first "go back" link would point to the sentence where
the ref is actually used, but the second one (i.e. the one containing
the bold-italic-superscript lowercase "b") would point to an invisible
<div> wherein the ref is defined. This may cause babies to cry.

On the other hand, it has somewhere been suggested that we play with
the idea of a non-self-closing <references> tag like this:

> The sky is blue<ref name="foo">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref>
> and the water is green.<ref name="bar"/>
>
> ==References==
> <references>
> <ref name="bar">{{cite news|...|TL|...|DR|...}}</ref>
> [other refs, but not "foo" which is already defined in-line]
> </references>
>
> [[Category:Ecology]]
> {{stub}}

The wikitext inside the <references> block would be sort of a safe
zone where <ref>s can be defined without incrementing the usage count
or creating confusing "one-way" anchor links, avoiding the problem
presented by the "ugly hack" above. Any text within the <references>
block but not part of any individual <ref> would probably best be
disregarded.

If we get something like this to work, our friendly {{reflist}}
template could be modified to accommodate it, i.e. change:

> <references/>

to:

> <references>{{{actual_refs|}}}</references>

Here, the parameter {{{actual_refs}}} (or whatever you want to call
it) would contain zero or more named <ref> tags, separated by as much
or as little desired white space or (invisible) editors' notes
regarding each ref, or whatever.

This assumes that a blank parameter value (or one not containing any
refs, only gibberish) would cause the <references></references> block
to behave the same as the self-closing status quo.

—C.W.

[1] Or would such boxes merely be considered "private"?
[2] The one non-obvious downside would exist for browsers which can't
handle the specified CSS.