You're right, the way we currently do references results in a complete mess. It requires some development work to make any progress, I think - I'll take a look at the relevant code and see if it can be done easily.

You're right, the way we currently do references results in a complete mess. It requires some development work to make any progress, I think - I'll take a look at the relevant code and see if it can be done easily.

I was going to say as well, what happened to that proposal to define references at the bottom of the article instead of inline? And then Pathos posted a nice implementation above. It does make a whole lot more sense from both a reader and an editor's point of view to have reference metadata in a single place, away from the wikitext. Defining refs with a "refname" in the text doesn't seem too bad... other than the mess of trying to get a different stylistic system going, is there some reason we don't do this?

I was going to say as well, what happened to that proposal to define references at the bottom of the article instead of inline? And then Pathos posted a nice implementation above. It does make a whole lot more sense from both a reader and an editor's point of view to have reference metadata in a single place, away from the wikitext. Defining refs with a "refname" in the text doesn't seem too bad... other than the mess of trying to get a different stylistic system going, is there some reason we don't do this? -- phoebe

If a reference is used more than once, it's not all in one place anyway. It actually solves the issue of someone accidentally deleting the text for the ref not realising it is used elsewhere. For refs only used once, it makes maintenance of the ref a little harder, but maintenance of the rest of the article much easier.

I tried to correct a sentence on the article MySpace in the English Wikipedia today. Well, I never got around to doing it. Here is what I'm hit with when I click the edit button. I really tried to change the stuff I wanted. I gave up. ====Beginning of madness====== {{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}} {{Infobox Dotcom company |company_name = MySpace |company_slogan = A Place for Friends |owner = [[Fox Interactive Media]] |company_logo = [[Image:MySpace logo.svg|225px]] |company_type = [[Subsidiary]] |foundation = 2003 |location_city = [[Beverly Hills, California|Beverly Hills]], [[California]] |location_country = U.S. |key_people = [[Tom Anderson (MySpace)|Tom Anderson]], President<br>[[Chris DeWolfe]], CEO |num_employees = 300 |url = [http://www.myspace.com/ MySpace.com] |registration = Required |launch_date = August, 2003 |current_status = Active |language = [[MySpace#International sites|15 languages]] |advertising = [[Google]], [[AdSense]] |website_type = [[Social network service|Social networking]] }} [[Image:Foxinteractivemediaheadquarters.jpg|thumb|260px|Fox Interactive Media headquarters, 407 North Maple Drive, [[Beverly Hills]], California, where MySpace is also housed]] '''MySpace''' is a popular [[social network service|social networking]] [[website]] offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. Its headquarters are in [[Beverly Hills]], [[California]], [[USA]],<ref>[ http://www.laobserved.com/biz/2006/08/my_space_is_not_thei.php My Space is not their space anymore] - Article on the move to [[Beverly Hills]]. Retrieved March 16, 2007.</ref> where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, [[Fox Interactive Media]]; which is owned by [[News Corporation]], which has its headquarters in [[New York City]]. In June 2006, MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the [[United States]].<ref>[ http://mashable.com/2006/07/11/myspace-americas-number-one/ MySpace, America's Number One<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> According to [[comScore]], MySpace has been overtaken by main competitor [[Facebook]] in April 2008, based on monthly unique visitors.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Facebook_Largest_Fastest_Growing_Social_… |title=Facebook: Largest, Fastest Growing Social Network |accessdate=2008-08-14 |author=Techtree News Staff |date=2008-08-13 |work=Techtree.com |publisher=ITNation |doi= |archiveurl= |archivedate= |quote= }}</ref> The company employs 300 staff<ref name="CNNMoney-MyspaceCowboys">{{cite news | url= http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/09/04/8384727/i… | publisher=CNN | title=MySpace Cowboys | last=Sellers | first=Patricia | date=2006-08-24 | accessdate=2006-08-28 }}</ref> and does not disclose [[revenue]]s or [[profit]]s separately from News Corporation. The 100 millionth account was created on August 6, 2006<ref name="MySpace100Millionth Profile">{{cite news |url= http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friend… |publisher=MySpace |title=100,000,000th<http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=100000000%7Cpublisher=MySpace%7Ctitle=100,000,000th>Account |date=2007-02-25 |accessdate=2007-02-21 }}</ref> in the [[Netherlands]]<ref name="Murdochcomments">{{cite news | url=http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/15237 | publisher=SeekingAlpha | title=Rupert Murdoch Comments on Fox Interactive's Growth | last=Murdoch | first=Rupert | date=2006-08-09 | accessdate=2006-09-12 }}</ref> and approximately 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006,<ref name="ElReg-MySpaceMusic">{{cite news | url = http://go.theregister.com/feed/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/08/mysp… | title = MySpace music deal poses multiple threats | date= 2006-09-08 | accessdate = 2006-09-08 | publisher = The Register }}</ref> and the site attracts 230,000 new users per day.<ref>{{cite news|last=Sellers|first=Patricia|title=MySpace cowboys|url= http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/09/04/8384727/i… (magazine)|Money]]|publisher=CNN.com|date=2006-09-04|accessdate=2008-04-13}}</ref> =======End of madness====== If we're really to bring knowledge to the world, it's becoming urgent that we work on accessibility, because even experienced users (I consider myself one) just can't do it. In any case, if anyone wants to (can?) make the change, here is what I wanted to change: Change the sentence "The 100 millionth account was created on August 6, 2006[5] in the Netherlands[6] and approximately 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006,[7] and the site attracts 230,000 new users per day.[8]" Which does not make sense, to something like: "The 100 millionth account was created on August 6, 2006 [5] in the Netherlands [6] and the site counted approximately 106 million accounts on September 8, 2006 [7]. MySpace.com attracts 230,000 new users per day. [8]" Which actually makes sense. Delphine -- ~notafish NB. This gmail address is used for mailing lists. Your emails will get lost. Ceci n'est pas une endive - http://blog.notanendive.org _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

For what it's worth, I think WYSIWYG is evil. But there is probably a middle path between cluttered text and Word-like unstructuration.

2008/9/25 phoebe ayers &lt;phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com&gt;om>: Basically it results in a high maintenance cost with a fairly high chance of errors. It means you have to keep the article text and the end section in sync rather than just keeping all the stuff in one place.

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 9:14 AM, Thomas Dalton &lt;thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: And arguably it would make it easier, not harder, if you had several similar refs, to correct any errors in all of your references at once, see irregularities, etc. -- phoebe _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

I tried to correct a sentence on the article MySpace in the English Wikipedia today. Well, I never got around to doing it.

That makes perfect sense, and that is exactly the rationale behind LaTeX (and other such typesetting software). Good documents have good structure; WYSIWYG is not intended to foster good structure, it's designed to foster looking pretty. While looking pretty is nice, it should never come at the expense of form. If you have good structure the rest can come along behind.

Some kind of syntax highlighting might be good (we obviously have syntax highlighting extensions already installed, the trick now is just making it work in the edit window). Syntax folding might be a nice addition too, but I've never seen that in a working web interface. WYSIWYG is obviously the ultimate goal, but progress on that has been understandably slow. There are some interesting helpful editing extensions available, maybe some of them need to be evaluated and good cross-platform features could be folded into MediaWiki's core eventually.