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Wikipedia's reference procedures damage article quality

Why has the readability of wikitext and regular text been damaged so severely by the use of reference templates and procedures? Why can't an article just [1] directly to a source? (no middle-men please) It's insanely redundant to list every author and the date of every source. And the superscripted font text messes up the spacing of the line above in my opera browser. I propose the drastic option of switching all references to a manual Sources section which the following article is a good example of: Michelle Caruso-Cabrera. It's not possible to have a reference template and procedures that fits all legal, political, historical and other reference requirements. Please stop the readability damage insanity with references, it's a solution in search of a problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zen-master (talk • contribs) 12:26, August 17, 2007

Why can't an article just [2] directly to a source? (no middle-men please) -- For one thing, a lot of sources aren't on the internet, so can't be directly linked to. Even those that are might change location or disappear off the internet altogether. I personally hate the reference templates & never use them, but the basic <ref>...</ref> system works just fine. --Yksin 16:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the ref system and think it should be discontinued. Whenever you have a source that can be directly linked to you should directly link to it. What do you think of the Sources section idea? zen master T 17:00, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it at all. I like being able to look at an article & see complete bibliographic information about the source, without being forced to travel to a link in order to find that information. Assuming that the link hasn't moved or disappeared to begin with. When a source is online, one can still link to it directly within the <ref>...</ref>, but using links only without bibliographic info is in my opinion poor practice. I can understand people who don't know how to do proper citations doing it that way, but inevitably to make an article decent someone else has to come along & clean it up. In any case, numerous sources such as books & many journal, magazine, & newspaper articles (especially before 1995 or so) aren't on the internet anyway, & can't be linked to. --Yksin 17:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I think a general "Sources" section is ambiguous and imprecise. Readers should be able to tell, at a glance, exactly which source was used for each fact or assertion. Citations and sources should not be a guessing game. --ElKevbo 17:31, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Alleged precision and unambiguity should not come at the expense of readability. zen master T 17:39, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Yksin and ElKevbo. The only way articles will ever truly be reliable is if the reader can quickly verify the assertions made. Inline citations allow for this, and the more information you can provide about the source, the better. Think of it this way: a link you provided may work today, but if the website moves, restructures, or simply limits the time articles are available online, future readers have no way of finding that source. If you provide a link, title, date, author, and any other available detail, right next to the claim the source backs-up, I'll be able to contact the publisher/author and verify that claim if I can no longer find it online. It also allows for quick identification of sources, where as a general source section would leave me clueless if I'm looking to verify just one claim in an article. - auburnpilot talk 17:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

That should all be done in the Sources section and not be put inline next to every direct link. zen master T 17:56, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

The non-ref template or html tag Sources section can have entries in sentence/paragraph form. The tiny superscripted text and lack of linking directly to the source damages article readability. zen master T 17:55, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the current setup is not ideal for casual readers and can be confusing. However, I can't think of a better way to do things right now. Full and correct bibliographic information for cited sources is paramount, even at the expense of a bit of usability or readability. Your suggestion of "just link to the source inline and have a 'Sources' section" does not allow us to precisely link material to non-web sources.

I recommend you look into Harvard Referencing for an example of an alternative referencing system that seems to work well for some Wikipedia editors while still meeting our information and bibliographic needs. --ElKevbo 18:03, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Readability is more important than how Harvard does references. I repeat, it's not possible to meet all possible reference requirements: legal, historical, scientific, etc etc. zen master T 18:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"it's not possible to meet all possible reference requirements". Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean...any examples? - auburnpilot talk 18:10, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

"Harvard referencing" does not refer to "how Harvard does references" (except in a historical and etymological sense). It's the name of a style of referencing. Seriously - go read up on it. It may be interesting to you and illustrative of another approach to citations. It may even appeal to you or solve some of the problems that you perceive. --ElKevbo 18:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

My point is: no reference policy should damage readability. zen master T 19:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

If you can figure out a better way to do things that would not impact readability, please make suggestions! Your previous suggestion, however, does not make the grade. --ElKevbo 00:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Proper spacing with superscripts is the responsibility of the browser. If it doesn't work right, it's an issue for the browser developers. It might also be affected by CSS or things like browser font settings. Either way, I don't think that's a reason to avoid this sort of referencing, even if it were to create some unevenness.

As for arriving directly at an external URL instead of first having to jump to a link in the references section, this is something that could be made configurable in the Wikipedia settings. Another option (possible with Opera) is creating custom user-JS code that will tweak the page locally to do that. ¤ ehudshapira 00:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Citation style

Could we make {{reflist}} post the text of {{Citation style}} if there were no <ref></ref> on the article? And if we could should we? Jeepday (talk) 12:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 7 issue

This tag does not work on my Internet Explorer version 7.0.5730.11. For example if you say {{reflist|#}} it seems to ignore the # and forces only 1 column to always appear. (:O) -Nima Baghaei ^{talk · cont · email} 23:04, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It only works on Firefox at the moment. See the documentation. –Pomte 23:39, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Technically, Mozilla-derived browsers, of which Firefox is one. (Webkit-derived browsers, also.) IE is behind the curve, and the doco mentions this. ⇔ ChristTrekker 18:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Documentation says it works with Safari, but it does not work with my Konqueror (Safari & Konqueror share KHTML). --Michalis Famelis (talk) 15:37, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Not true. Safari uses WebKit, a forked version of KHTML. Ms2ger 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

XML ID syntax

Both the <ref> code and the {{Reflist}} code use XML ID syntax (all the IDs begin with _). Is it possible to rectify this (or is that too much to ask)? The Valid One 13:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

This can't be changed here, the page you're looking for is MediaWiki:Cite reference link prefix. Ms2ger 18:40, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Linking problem

The multi-columned references display fine for me, but the links from the numbers to the footnotes do not work properly for references that are not in the first column. For example, Bird#_note-97 doesn't lead me to note 97, but to some place in the external links. I don't know if this is specific to my browser (I use Safari 3). Lesgles (talk) 20:09, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#reflist.7C2_problem. –Pomte 20:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, although they aren't discussing quite the same problem that I have, which is related to how the link target is interpreted, rather than how it is displayed. I will continue the discussion over there. Thanks for the link. Lesgles (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

From Talk:Morayshire Railway

also posted at Wikipedia talk:Footnotes

This section contains footnotes. I beleive for consistency that [3] should be followed in this case. I will be reverting the page back to using "reflist" as the guideline suggests. --Rockfang (talk) 18:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This contradicts Template:reflist#Usage which states there is no concensus to use the small font version. There is no reason in this article to use the small font version. In addition Wikipedia:FN#Resizing_references indicates that small font has some disadvantages and conversely that some editors prefer the smaller font. I do not like the small font. In this article there are only ten referenced items, and I see not advantage for the smaller font. --Stewart ^(talk) 18:54, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

In this case, Template:reflist#Usage is incorrect. If you check the history of Wikipedia:FN a lot of stuff has been removed because people edited it without consensus. The "how to use" section is still on there because it has reached consensus. With regards to your small font point: sometimes small font does have disadvantages. Some people might have poor eyesight even with glasses and the smaller font could be harder for them to read. I would prefer to be consistent though. Even though list isn't extremely long at only 10 items, that number was reached as consensus at the most applicable guideline to follow: Wikipedia:FN --Rockfang (talk) 19:19, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The difficulty I have with this is you have used a template which has its guidance notes and then informed me that the guidance notes are incorrect and superceded by a MoS elsewhere in Wikipedia. I will reluctantly bow to you edit, however it is important that the guidance notes with the {{reflist}} are corrected to reflect WP:FN otherwise others will follow the notes to the template and revert like I did. --Stewart ^(talk) 19:45, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Font size again

I've never really been happy with the small font used for references/footnotes, and yes I know that personally I have the option to (re-learn css and) edit my style sheet. I find the smaller font hard to read, and I have good corrected vision. Now I understand that print used small fonts for references/footnotes because it a) saved paper, and b) reduced problems with footnotes driving their own reference points ontothe next page, and c) clearley distinguished them from body text, but non of these apply to the online WP. Why then do do it? I would say (primarily) because we get an enormous (sometimes) quantity of non-flowing text that makes it hard to get to the other standard appendices, navboxen and categories - this belief is supported by the fact that we like columns, and by the temporary introduction of scrollboxen. I would suggest that the solution is, rather than trying to compress the footnotes/referneces, allow them to move to their natural place at the end of the article, certainly after the other standard appendices. (I also think we should rethink navboxen, but that's another story.) Comments? Rich Farmbrough, 07:46 12 September 2007 (GMT).

I personally prefer {{reflist}} or {{reflist|2}} to <references/> The size difference is not that significant when reading and it just looks more professional to me. A fairly well referenced article like Road {{reflist|2}} makes about a 30% difference in the size of the reference section. Just my thoughts. If there is neither on an article I will usely use {{reflist}} but I won't replace <references/> just to use {{reflist}} but will if I feel the need for {{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}}. Jeepday (talk) 02:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, Rich, one reason why people have web pages mimic dead-tree pages is their odd notion that web pages are paper. A thirty percent reduction in the number of centimetres taken up by notes translates into a zero percentage reduction in electrons, bytes, carbon emissions, etc. It doesn't even save any scrolling for most people, who sensibly don't read through the notes but instead pop down to a particular note and pop back up from it as curiosity demands. Reducing the size may indeed "look more professional"; to me this in turn means "look more as if it was done for the money". Speaking as a proud amateur I'd say it's a stupid idea, and I'm puzzled when some bot or robotic person arrives at an article on my watchlist and scrunches up the notes; one good thing I've noticed is that after I revert to gimmick-free "<references />", the (ro)bot seldom revisits, let alone kicks up a fuss about it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems odd to use small text for articles which only have a note or two. WP:FN at least says not to use reflist for 9 or fewer notes. Gimmetrow 17:51, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

When there are a lot of references, I find it easier to soak in the 4+ pieces of info for each reference when they're presented in the smaller font than the regular font. And I despised the temporary introduction of scroll boxes and hidden boxes. Do you also oppose the smaller font in navboxes? –Pomte 20:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I rarely pay any attention to navboxes. If they're closed, I rarely open them; if they're open, I rarely look inside; and I add one perhaps twice a year. So offhand I don't have any opinion on them. I do look at notes, and wonder why they are even slightly less easy to read than plain text is. -- Hoary (talk) 15:17, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

• I agree. Making an entire section of an article significantly harder to read seems like an odd way of treating your readers. Most readers are unlikely to know enough CSS to be able to rid themselves of what is a grievous source of harmful eyestrain. - Neparis (talk) 18:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Interstate 355

Why are there two ref 31s on this page? —Rob (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I only see one. - auburnpilot talk 18:41, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I can only see one reference 31 in the reference list. Can you please provide more detail. --Stewart ^(talk) 18:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Apologies - it seems to be moving up as I edit the page. Currently it's ref 28 that is duplicated at the top of the 2nd column in the References section. —Rob (talk) 19:09, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I am puzzled as I can only see one column containing all the references 1 to 55. --Stewart ^(talk) 19:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The mystery deepens! I have uploaded a screenshot to: [4]. Using Firefox 2.0.0.11. It's possible my browser is messed up. —Rob (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I am using IE6 with XP Pro. Have you get any Wikipedia stylesheets setup? --Stewart ^(talk) 19:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't think so... the only changes I've made are adding Twinkle, the edit intro quasi-hack, and adding popups. —Rob (talk) 20:02, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

File:AuburnPilotTestImage.jpg

AuburnPilot's view of Interstate 355

I'm using the same firefox version, but the reference section appears differently on my screen. I'm guessing it has something to do with your system's setup (or monobook.css if you have one setup). See the screenshot of how I see it, on the right. - auburnpilot talk 20:03, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Very strange. Nothing in monobook.css. Note that I wrote it in as {{reflist|2}}, so why you can't see 2 columns, I don't have the faintest idea. —Rob (talk) 20:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I did some testing using my test account, but I couldn't reproduce your results. I did figure out that my monobook (which imports User:AuburnPilot/adminnolupin/monobook.js) is causing the scrollbar that I see, and reformats the number of columns. Whether {{reflist}} is set to two, three, or four columns, mine will always appear with one column and a scrollbar. The short version: my settings are such that I can't really be of any help. Sorry, - auburnpilot talk 20:23, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(reset) It does appear to be a local issue... I tried it on FF 2.0.0.11 on Windows Server 2003 and it works OK. So maybe there's something up with the other browser. —Rob (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Multiple columns in IE

Can someone add some detail about what happens to multiple columns in non-supporting browsers, most importantly IE? Do they simple fall back to one column? -- Ddxc (talk) 08:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, default behaviour for properties they don't recognize. –Pomte —Preceding comment was added at 08:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Error in category

In case an error occurs, the article should appear in a category. -- Matthead  Discuß   03:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Help reusing

I've stared up my own Wiki, and while it's really small so far, I wanted to include this template so references could be used in it. Apparently simply copying the code did not work. Could somebody better versed in MediaWiki help me out please? My wiki is at [5], and the reflist template is at [6]. Thanks in advance! --Gaeamil (talk) 04:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You have to install mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php. —Ms2ger (talk) 14:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Source Information

This document only appears to outline how to use Template:Reflist, but where can one obtain the source information for usage on other MediaWiki based encyclopedias? Terek (talk) 00:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

The underlying code is <references />, which is available on any mediawiki install which includes cite.php. You can look at the source with the "source" button from the template page. Gimmetrow 02:36, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

So, if cite.php has been installed, one need only copy the source from "view source" on the template page onto a fresh Reflist Template on the desired Wiki to enable the template? Terek (talk) 04:10, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Other parts may depend on other things. The -mos-colum-width works on mozilla but maybe not on internet explorer, and references-small would need to be defined in some .css page. The protection and documentation templated might not exist either, and {{documentation}} uses a couple subtemplates. Gimmetrow 04:19, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

My employer seems to have already gone through this process, installing Template:Documentation, Template:Template.doc, Template:Reflist, Template:Cite web, and Template:Pp-template, with no success. What could be the potential trouble? Perhaps some templates were omitted, or something else? Terek (talk) 08:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Ignore all the extra stuff to begin with. Just have <references /> in the template, and see how that goes. It should allow any wikitext with cite.php "ref" tags and a {{reflist}} to produce something as a reference list, though it won't be multicolumn. If that works, start adding other pieces. Gimmetrow 08:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

As per your suggestions, we installed just those parameters and it seems to be working partially; a reflist template appears in the appropriate section, although instead of giving the line-item citations like on Wikipedia all that appears is an upward arrow (↑). Where do we go from here - do we add the other pieces now? Terek (talk) 09:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No, that doesn't sound like it's working yet. Does the article text have a footnote, something like <ref>Here's a footnote</ref>? Gimmetrow 14:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It does, rather than appearing as [7] I have in-text citation as though the footnote in the reflist itself is an arrow. Terek (talk) 09:04, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you have {{cite web}}? A cite with just spaces would give the arrow alone. Gimmetrow 09:24, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

My employer says to make it work, we need something called a "basic setup" and not something constructed for Wikipedia use. Could you interpret this? 76.197.6.15 (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's what I've been trying to tell you how to set up. Perhaps you need to explain some additional context. Are you trying to take wikitext straight from here and use it elsewhere? Or are you writing your own wikipages? If the latter, then skip using the cite templates and just write out the citations for a while until you see what, if anything, you really need. For instance, without {{cite web}}. Gimmetrow 01:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Excellent, it does appear to be working! My utmost thanks, this has been troublesome for us for many months. A question or two remains, however - how does one decrease the size of the citations, or get the reflist template to split into two sections so as not to keep the reference section long? Terek (talk) 04:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist|2}} or {{reflist|3}} for columns, if you're using this code. The font size is set here with a CSS class. Or just use standard html resizing: <div style="font-size:90%"><references/></div> Gimmetrow 04:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Footnote numbering

Something is causing the automatic numbering of footnotes to break in multicolumn lists. (I don't know why the first list isn't showing all the refs.)

{{reflist}}

{{reflist|2}}

{{reflist|3}}

Here's a non-toy example: one-column, footnotes 1–38 vs. two columns, footnotes 1–37.
—WWoods (talk) 03:03, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I see 38 in both. After the named refs were changed, refs after references/ are not handled well. There is a reflist earlier on this page, so that's probably why the first one above is broken. Gimmetrow 04:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

See Music of Final Fantasy IV, Music of Final Fantasy IX. The second column repeats the first number twice. It autocorrects if you click on the tag to go to the reference for any reference in the first collumn (i.e., the "^") --PresN (talk) 20:37, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Save wikipedia harddrive space

{{editprotected}}

<references/><noinclude>{{pp-template|small=yes}}{{documentation}}</noinclude> 

--{{123Pie|Talk}} 20:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

If you mean remove the column code, I don't think it would go over well. Gimmetrow 20:51, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I see your point there. – [[123Pie|Talk]] 20:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling reflist?

{{editprotected}}

Rationale

This article has just had scrollbars added to its reflist. The addition of a "scrolling" parameter will make such a feature easy to implement, and standardise the appearance of scrolling windows.

Implementation

Copy the content of template:reflist/editprotected to this template.

Utilisation

Once implemented, a references section can be made scrolling by setting the parameter scrolling=yes.

Proposed by: Verisimilus T 21:42, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

As I understand it, scrolling reflists aren't used because they screw up printing. --Golbez (talk) 21:52, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

And mirrors, and other things. They're explicitly prohibited by WP:CITE, if I recall correctly. Kirill 22:25, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 11#Template:Scrollref for past consensus against this feature. –Pomte 22:39, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Disabled edit-protected request per previous discussions on this topic. - auburnpilot talk 23:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

File:APScrollref.jpg

Scroll ref created using monobook.js code.

Incidentally, I tested some code, which was written by Voice of All (talk · contribs), and if you add this to your monobook.js page, you should have a scroll reflist. It worked for me; see the image at right. - auburnpilot talk 23:54, 26 March 2008 (UTC)