From: zero 0000 <nought_0000(a)yahoo.com>
One of the most common complaints about the <ref>...</ref>
feature is how it disrupts the line spacing. Have we tried not
raising the reference numbers at all? It seems to me that
judicious use of font size and color would work ok even
when the reference numbers were sitting on the basline.
Then the line-spacing problem would go away.
I'd like to think big here and work in a more general way on the
problem of making references have a less intrusive appearance.
Of the people who complain that dense references make articles
unreadable, I am not sure to what extent they are truly complaining
about the appearance or to what extent they simply disagree with the
verifiability policy... but under the current system dense references
do interfere with readability.
While we're doing this, I'd like to see something else. The present
system is an imitation of the superscripted-footnote-reference system
used in books. It works well in books because the text of a book
doesn't change after it has been printed.
In Wikipedia, a reference should mark, not the end of the fact being
supported, but the _beginning and end_ of the fact being supported.
As things stand, careless editing (and there's no way to enforce
careFUL editing) can easily make unsupported statements appear to be
supported. A recent example, from the article on the Statue of
Liberty. A passage once read:
The seven spikes in the crown represent the seven seas and seven
continents.[2]
In due course, or undue course, someone decided to add what I think
were personal musings about the statue symbolizing "the American
Dream," a concept I think was unfamiliar to Bartholdi, and the
passage mutated to:
Each spike on the Seven-spiked crown denotes the seven seas or the
seven continents. The torch embodies the meaning of enlightenment and
guidance for the millions of immigrants seeking freedom from
oppression. The broken shackles lying at Lady Liberty's feet confirm
this view.[2]
You see the problem. The cited source says nothing about shackles or
immigrants. (For that matter, it says nothing about _each_ individual
spike denoting the seven seas or seven continents. Now, personally I
think spike #1 represents the seven seas, spike #2 the seven
continents, spike #3 the Seven Dwarfs, spike #4 the Seven Deadly
Sins, spike #5 the Seven Samurai, spike #6 the Seven Pleiades, and
spike #7 represents the day Bartholdi rested...)