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.