[Wikipedia-l] Central bibliography

[Bogdan Giusca]

Tuesday, September 5, 2006, 6:15:46 AM, you wrote:

LA> Suppose you define a way to identify a pre-defined reference, e.g.
LA> the Wikipedia Standard Reference Numbering (WSRN), you could set 
LA> up a server of your own where the reference database is kept and 
LA> just link to that from a template.  It would be no different from 
LA> Egil Kvaleberg's map link server and the {{coor}} template.

LA>   WSRN = 1   --> "The Wiki Way", ISBN 0-201-71499-X
LA>   WSRN = 2   --> "The Hive", article in "The Atlantic Monthly",
LA>                  http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200609/wikipedia
LA>   WSRN = 3   --> ...

LA> and a template {{wsrn|3}} to make a reference.

but, when one would edit the article, they will see just {{wsrn|3}}
and have absolutely no idea about which book is referenced. Especially
in articles with dozens of book references, this would make the
editing much more complicated than it is now with <ref> tags.