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

[Thomas Larsen]

Hi,

On 12/5/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Thats a lot like what we used to do, the problem is that references
> were *constantly* orphaned, scrambled, etc.  The references were often
> nonsense.
[/snip]

That's probably one flaw with the system I propose. Nevertheless, as
one might ask rhetorically: how many people _avoid_ inserting
references altogether because they can't be bothered coping with the
messy text flow? and how many people avoid editing a page, because the
first few lines consist of nothing except reference text? I'd say the
number is quite larger. Perhaps it's worth the cost of having a few
orphaned refs to set up an easier-to-use system. (Of course, we could
always have Special:OrphanedRefs :-).)

[snip]
> Instead I propose: Have javascript mediate the edit box so that inline
> references are converted to little red [R] text,  moving your cursor
> into the [R] area by clicking or arrowkeying causes it to expand to
> display the full reference.  You can add references by simply typing
> them like normal and then they'll collapse when you navigate away, or
> you can press some "insert reference" button that pops up a dialog
> that asks for the relevant information which then types the completed
> reference for you.
[/snip]

This is a viable idea. The issue is, though, that not everybody has
Javascript enabled in their web browsers. I feel that Wikipedia is
JS-dependent enough as it is ... but then, I suppose, most people _do_
use JS.

Thanks everybody for your thoughts.

--Thomas Larsen