[WikiEN-l] Suggestion on how referencing system could be improved

[Thomas Larsen]

Hi all,

The current <ref>...</ref>...<references/> system produces nice
references, but it is flawed--all the text contained in a given
reference appears in the text that the reference is linked from. For
example:

  It was a sunny day on Wednesday<ref>David Smith. ''History of Wednesdays.''
  History Magazine, 2019.</ref>. The next day, Thursday, was cloudy.

  == References and notes ==

  <references/>

(That's a very simple example, too. References start to become a lot
larger once they start to include other information and/or are
produced via a template.)

Once way I could conceive of correcting the problem is to have a
reference tag that provides only a _link_ to the note via a label and
another type of reference tag that actually _defines_ and _displays_
the note. For example:

  It was a sunny day on Wednesday<ref id="smith"/>. The next day, Thursday,
  was cloudy.

  == References and notes ==

  <reference id="smith">David Smith. ''History of Wednesdays.'' History
  Magazine, 2019.</reference>

This makes the raw wikitext easier to read, since the text of the
actual reference is in the _references_ section instead of in the
page's primary content.

I think this could work ...

--Thomas Larsen