Hi,
On 12/5/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@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