Looks like a splendid idea. I was thinking about something similar just the other day (I'm not a Wiki developer, but am a software engineer).
What would be good would be the ability to add a tag to references, so as long as someone defined a tag somewhere in the page it could be references by simply including that tag. This flexibility would mean that the software would have to parse the text twice during page generation, unfortunately. Adapting for Wiki, since mine was for a different document description language, but it could work something like:
No definition: {{Web reference|title=|work=|URL=|date=|year=}}
Definition and first (or any) use: {{tag=Web reference|title=|work=|URL=| date=|year=}}
Tag form: {{=tag}}
Feasibility could be demonstrated by writing a script that takes this form of Wiki input and generates the current form of Wiki input. Should be a relatively simple job. I might give it a whirl when the mood next takes me.
I would certainly use it.
Jake.
On Saturday 29 January 2005 23:23, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
One problem I've found with regard to citing sources is the current lack of support in MediaWiki for automatically numbered footnotes.
There are a couple of controversial articles I've been involved in editing for which I would like to go through with a fine toothed comb citing sources. My job would be made much easier if I could use automatically numbered footnotes in tandem with comprehensive templates such as {{Web reference|title=|work=|URL=|date=|year=}}.
I'm betting that once there is such support we'll find a huge upsurge in the quality of citing.
[[Wikipedia:Cite sources]] [[Wikipedia:Footnote2#Proposed future enhancements - autogeneration]]
Christiaan
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