[Foundation-l] WikiCite - new WMF project? Was: [Wiki-research-l] UPEI's proposal for a "universal citation index"

[David Goodman]

This example illustrates some of the problems. If the work is
available in other languages, the non-Serbian WPs would want to cite
the translation in their language. If the book is being cited from an
online excerpt, at least the enWP would require that this be
specified. And if different people cited different versions in this
manner, we would want to link them together. There seems to be the
delusion that accurate work of this sort can be done by automatic
programs. It can be done assisted by automated programs, but requires
manual checking of every item by someone qualified to make the
connections.

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 5:38 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk at eunet.rs> wrote:
> Дана Monday 19 July 2010 22:20:15 Brian J Mingus написа:
>> Feel free to provide your feedback on this idea, in addition to your own
>> ideas, in this thread, or to me personally. I am especially interested in
>> the potential benefits to the WMF projects that you see, and to hear your
>> thoughts on the potential of this project on its own, as that will feature
>> prominently in the proposal. Additionally, what do you think WikiCite would
>> eventually be like, once it is fully matured?
>
> I was thinking about this too. Main advantages that I see are that citations
> will become easier to use for editors while more informative for readers. Too
> often I just link to something instead of properly filling a cite template
> because it's just too bothersome. For example, instead of this crud:
>
> {{cite book|author=Š. Kulišić |coauthors=P. Ž. Petrović, N. Pantelić |
> title=Српски митолошки речник |origyear=1970 |publisher=[[Nolit]] |
> location=Belgrade |language=Serbian |pages=161 |chapter=Јерисавља}}
>
> we would have just:
>
> {{cite|work=Српски митолошки речник |pages=161 |chapter=Јерисавља}}
>
> Another advantage that I see: people will spend less time filling in the
> citation templates and will thus have more time to make more precise
> citations. This means more citations with exact page numbers or quotes.
>
> Perhaps this could be tested on-wiki prior to creating a separate project,
> perhaps through revival of Reference namespace. This could be done through
> templates only, would require no changes to MediaWiki and few changes to
> existing practices.
>
> BTW1: it is my understanding that you imagined this for literature only, but
> it could be expanded to all citable media (videos etc).
>
> BTW3: for citing online stuff, this could eventually be combined with archive
> of cited pages. If the original goes away we would still have the source for
> the readers to verify. This would also help with some copyright concerns (for
> example, using free images the source of which is later removed thus leaving
> the images with no evidence of being free).
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG