[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Mediawiki-l] that awful <ref> syntax

[Bryan Derksen]

Aude wrote:
> Maybe it would be worthwhile for us to do usability testing on different
> referencing methods.  Some usability testing was done on the German
> Wikipedia, a few years ago.  This would allow us to test the interface with
> general people, rather than experienced Wikipedians.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability

A method I've used a few times is to create a template for each
individual reference to make reuse easier. This had the added benefit of
making the wiki code much simpler in the article itself; instead of
having "<ref>{{cite book|title=The Timetables of Science|
first=Alexander| last=Hellemans| coauthors=Bryan Bunch| publisher=Simon
and Schuster| location=New York, New York| year=1988| isbn=0671621300
|pages=}}</ref>" embedded in the article's text all you have is
"<ref>{{The Timetables of Science}}</ref>" (or "<ref>{{The Timetables of
Science|pages=blah}}</ref>" to reference a specific page).

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Specific_source_templates>
for other similar examples. If this were to become a widespread practice
it might make sense to create a pseudo-namespace to keep the templates
organized, much like how almost all userboxes have names beginning with
"User ".

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