Hi,
On 12/5/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
Thats a lot like what we used to do, the problem is
that references
were *constantly* orphaned, scrambled, etc. The references were often
nonsense.
[/snip]
That's probably one flaw with the system I propose. Nevertheless, as
one might ask rhetorically: how many people _avoid_ inserting
references altogether because they can't be bothered coping with the
messy text flow? and how many people avoid editing a page, because the
first few lines consist of nothing except reference text? I'd say the
number is quite larger. Perhaps it's worth the cost of having a few
orphaned refs to set up an easier-to-use system. (Of course, we could
always have Special:OrphanedRefs :-).)
[snip]
Instead I propose: Have javascript mediate the edit
box so that inline
references are converted to little red [R] text, moving your cursor
into the [R] area by clicking or arrowkeying causes it to expand to
display the full reference. You can add references by simply typing
them like normal and then they'll collapse when you navigate away, or
you can press some "insert reference" button that pops up a dialog
that asks for the relevant information which then types the completed
reference for you.
[/snip]
This is a viable idea. The issue is, though, that not everybody has
Javascript enabled in their web browsers. I feel that Wikipedia is
JS-dependent enough as it is ... but then, I suppose, most people _do_
use JS.
Thanks everybody for your thoughts.
--Thomas Larsen