[WikiEN-l] Re: New policy proposal

[Sheldon Rampton]

Bryan Derksen wrote:

>Once upon a time long long ago I remember putting in a feature request for
>a simple "footnote" markup, along the lines of adding [[Note:blah blah
>blah]] anywhere in the article and having it turn into a superscripted
>number linking to an anchor for the text "blah blah blah" down at the very
>bottom of the page. Something like that could be suitable for references
>too, though it wouldn't be nice for making multiple references to the same
>source scattered throughout an article. Maybe a [[Ref:blah blah blah]]
>markup that automatically combines identical "blah blah" text into the same
>reference at the bottom?

I would suggest a markup along the lines of [[ref:id:position]], 
accompanied by a separate markup of the form, 
[note:id]fullreference[/foot], where "id" is a unique indentifier of 
the reference, and "fullreference" is the full reference. For example:

[[ref:Nolan:p. 12]]

and:

[note:Nolan]Hamilton Nolan, 
"[http://prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=226978&site=3 UFCW seeking 
to unionize Canada Wal-Mart workers]," ''PR Week'', November 8, 
2004.[/note]

One problem with a simple [[Ref:blah blah blah]] markup is that it 
doesn't provide a way to put wiki markup into the reference, such as 
italicization or hyperlinks. The syntax I've described above would 
also make it possible to have multiple references in a text to the 
same source. For example, there might be several places where the 
text references the Nolan article, e.g., [ref:Nolan:p. 7], 
[ref:Nolan:p. 12], or just [ref:Nolan]. Each reference would point to 
the same note. It would also be possible to choose different options 
for display of the notes. Someone who doesn't want to see them at all 
could have the option of turning them off in user preferences. In the 
event that a print version is published, there could be the 
additional option of displaying notes as footnotes or as endnotes.

I think having a footnote markup is a good idea, but the syntax 
should be sufficiently robust to accommodate all of the things that 
are currently done with footnotes in traditional publications such as 
books and academic journals. And I sympathize with people who don't 
want to feel obligated to footnote everything in Wikipedia, but 
personally I find references extremely valuable. Also, references can 
be used to help resolve editing disputes. I don't think anyone should 
be *obligated* to use references, but it would be a step forward if 
the software provided this capability as an option.

--Sheldon Rampton