Regarding the references tab, I coincidentally posted a similar idea to WP:VP a few days ago. My idea differs slightly, in that I think it would be better if the reference page was not automatically generated from inline footnotes. Here's the text I posted on WP:VP:
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I think that in addition to a Talk: page for each article, there should be a References: page. With the current talk of referencing every fact in Wikipedia (which is a great idea), this seems like the only solution to me. Adding notes and inline links everywhere in articles only adds clutter, especially if the information about a reference is to include more than just a link.
My idea for the References: page is that it could mirror the section structure of the main article. The references page could then include prose, such as for example, "The fact that X is Y given in the first paragraph of this section is based on Foo (1990), pages 800-803, and supported by Bar (1992), page 456."
This way references can be provided in a way that is easier to interpret for the reader, more information about the references can be provided (since there's no cluttering of the articles), and editing becomes easier than with footnotes.
The link to the "References" page should be next to the "Article" and "Discussion" links. This would probably be easy to implement in the software.
By the way, another argument for this is that in-article references IMO break the excellent philosphy employed by Wikipedia that article content should be separated from discussion about articles. Though not discussion, references like discussion is not information about the subject but meta-information. ("further reading" bibliography sections, just like external links, should however still be provided in the main article.)
Another thing is that users could be allowed to sign with their names on the references page. That way, when a published reference work is not available, a user could sign to assert the validity of information. That way, information can be judged based on the credentials of that user. This is not different from looking up who added a piece of information using the page history, but more convenient since many articles have several pages of revision history listing, and users could then add more justification than there is room for in edit summaries.
Just to clarify, this does not mean that discussion of sources should be removed from articles entirely. Discussion of sources in the case where facts are disputed (outside of Wikipedia, that is) is of course relevant. But for undisputed facts, we already write "the Earth is round", not "according to NASA, the Earth is round".
I think this is an excellent idea, although, to be fair, the 'fact' that the earth is round is not completly undisputed ;) Mark
--- Fredrik Johansson fredrik.johansson@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding the references tab, I coincidentally posted a similar idea to WP:VP a few days ago. My idea differs slightly, in that I think it would be better if the reference page was not automatically generated from inline footnotes. Here's the text I posted on WP:VP:
I think that in addition to a Talk: page for each article, there should be a References: page. With the current talk of referencing every fact in Wikipedia (which is a great idea), this seems like the only solution to me. Adding notes and inline links everywhere in articles only adds clutter, especially if the information about a reference is to include more than just a link.
My idea for the References: page is that it could mirror the section structure of the main article. The references page could then include prose, such as for example, "The fact that X is Y given in the first paragraph of this section is based on Foo (1990), pages 800-803, and supported by Bar (1992), page 456."
This way references can be provided in a way that is easier to interpret for the reader, more information about the references can be provided (since there's no cluttering of the articles), and editing becomes easier than with footnotes.
The link to the "References" page should be next to the "Article" and "Discussion" links. This would probably be easy to implement in the software.
By the way, another argument for this is that in-article references IMO break the excellent philosphy employed by Wikipedia that article content should be separated from discussion about articles. Though not discussion, references like discussion is not information about the subject but meta-information. ("further reading" bibliography sections, just like external links, should however still be provided in the main article.)
Another thing is that users could be allowed to sign with their names on the references page. That way, when a published reference work is not available, a user could sign to assert the validity of information. That way, information can be judged based on the credentials of that user. This is not different from looking up who added a piece of information using the page history, but more convenient since many articles have several pages of revision history listing, and users could then add more justification than there is room for in edit summaries.
Just to clarify, this does not mean that discussion of sources should be removed from articles entirely. Discussion of sources in the case where facts are disputed (outside of Wikipedia, that is) is of course relevant. But for undisputed facts, we already write "the Earth is round", not "according to NASA, the Earth is round".
-- Fredrik Johansson _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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