http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation
Most use cases of <references/> actually place it above other sections, Wikipedia and on a number of other wiki. That would be a bit of a mess for various MoS'. A solution that handles things a little more freely would be nice. The absence of the tag when the section actually appears could cause some confusion about what pages it is missing causing people to ignore the need to add the tag when a wiki's MoS would dictate it be needed.
I'd say add a crude factbox style list of references when <references/> is absent, and list all pages missing <references/> on a special page or in a hidden category.
~Daniel Friesen (Dantman, Nadir-Seen-Fire) ~Profile/Portfolio: http://nadir-seen-fire.com -The Nadir-Point Group (http://nadir-point.com) --It's Wiki-Tools subgroup (http://wiki-tools.com) --The ElectronicMe project (http://electronic-me.org) -Wikia ACG on Wikia.com (http://wikia.com/wiki/Wikia_ACG) --Animepedia (http://anime.wikia.com) --Narutopedia (http://naruto.wikia.com)
Erik Moeller wrote:
This has probably been raised before (is there a bug for it?), but it appears to me that it would be significantly more user-friendly to append a <references/> section at the bottom of the text that is being parsed when it is missing.
This would
- make it easier for new users to discover referencing functionality
(oldbies could still properly reformat the tag);
- solve the "references missing in section preview" problem.
Is there any obvious reason not to do this?