Wikipedia talk:Footnotes

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[edit] "list first, citation second" way of generating footnotes?

Hey, I'm new to Wikipedia, so this may be a dumb question. In putting together an article where single references are used multiple times, it occured to me that it would be easier (for me, at least) to first create a named list of references, THEN place them into the text via name (<reference="A"/>). Of course, all you have to do is type in one instance of the whole reference and name it, then use the name tag for subsequent uses, but (for me at least) it's a whole lot easier to reference a pre-created list as I work through the article vs. having to scroll back to recall what the heck I named it (or refer to a written cheat sheet or Wordpad window) & remember to paste the whole thing the first time I use it. So, in short: has anyone thought of a "list first, citation second" way of generating footnotes? It may seem like a backward way of approaching the creation of footnotes, but then not all of us eat with a fork in our right hand. . .--Pgagnon999 (talk) 01:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC) To be a little clearer, it would look something like this:
First, create a list of references with a name for each. It would be invisible, so it could exist anywhere in the article.
Second, plug the references into the text by name (or, if they are single references, optionally just type them in here once).
Third, put the tag references/ under the "Reference" section at the end of the article.
This also would simplify copying reference names or blocks of reference names for multiple articles.--Pgagnon999 (talk) 02:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No, many people have thought of this before, but wiki doesn't seem to support a good way to implement it in an article without the article having some other quirk or deficiency. At least, nobody has figured one yet. See also Archive 6 and Archive 7 for earlier discussions. Gimmetrow 02:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Referenced at the end

Wording before change

(1) "Some words, phrases or facts must be referenced mid-sentence, while others are referenced at the end."

Discussed wording change (see Archive 7)

(2) "Place a ref tag at the end of the term, phrase, sentence, or paragraph to which the note refers."

I've been busy on other things but I think this needs further discussion before the change is implemented. The problem I have with this wording is the word "paragraph". Using it implies that the method to be used is not the Nature (journal) like one. I think it is better to leave it as "at the end" and it does not re-open this argument. Wording (1) works for both methods. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:22, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't really see how "or paragraph" in any way rules out a style which cites by sentence, and unless I've misunderstood something, this is a text *you* suggested a few months ago. What argument does this re-open? Gimmetrow 17:19, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nature style notation can not have a note at the end of a paragraph as the notes are within a sentence. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If it's the last sentence of the paragraph, it's the end of the paragraph. What am I missing here? And why did you want this changed to begin with, if it's so wrong? Gimmetrow 23:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I reserve the right to change my mind on something :-) and on reflection I see the wording awkward when we have one example style that places ref tags inside punctuation. One of the problems with CMS citations is that one can not tell if a reference tag at the end of the last sentence in a paragraph is a reference for the whole paragraph or just the last sentence. This ambiguity is removed with the Nature style. Personally I would like to combine the two, as it is convenient to use inside the punctuation for a sentence and out outside as a citation for the preceding text from the start of the paragraph or from the previous citation (which ever comes first). This would be particularly useful in Wikipedia articles given the collective editing that goes on, but I appreciate that this option is not on the table at the moment. So an end of paragraph is not something one can have if one is using reference tags inside punctuation. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

What evidence do you have that this "ambiguity is removed with the Nature style"? Gimmetrow 03:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

• Why did you change this over at WP:CITE? We are by no means at a consensus. Gimmetrow 04:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

• Why are we still talking about Nature style notation when there is no consensus to change Wiki's in-house style to that of one external journal? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • No-one has proposed changing "Wiki's in-house style to that of one external journal" while I have been watching this page; I doubt anyone has ever done so. Please try discussing the proposals which have actually been made. It is this sort of profound carelessness which makes this discussion so tiring and pointless. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:50, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Well precisely. Listen folks, shoving superscript square-brackets numerals before punctuation is just not appropriate. Nature, am I right, doesn't superscript their numerals. Even so, I think it sucks, because (1) when more than one numeral is cited, it looks ever so clumsy; (2) it interferes with the natural integrity of the sentence. I don't know why this is even being discussed, let alone why people are somehow pushing for the clumsy version. Wikipedia is no longer a child, and needs to establish its own formatting to suit its particular mode and readership. Tony (talk) 14:23, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • In shorter form, WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Tony can place footnotes as it pleases him; no-one has ever attempted to prohibit him from doing so. As it happens, I will also place them after punctuation, but I see no reason, and no consensus, for a "house style."
  • If Wikipedia is no longer a child, neither are its editors children; they should be free to follow their own judgment. This, as with WP:ENGVAR, is a point on which there is no consensus, and no likelihood of consensus. We have suggested a simple statement of the positions here, and been continually reverted. Removing the disputed section, as unsupported. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:57, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I have to disagree. Without a consistent style, as any professional publication has, Wikipedia reads like it was written by children. It's ironic that Wikipedians refer to each other as editors, because if there's anything Wikipedia is in desperate need of, it's an editor. --JHP (talk) 04:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I fear I have to support the generality of JHP's views (if not the specific phraseology). It is not just the inconsistency involved in using a variety of styles, it is the difficulty experienced by newer users in understanding what is and what is not appropriate and that changes are repeatedly made to MOS without there being any system in place to alert long-suffering editors. WP:ENGVAR works because it is usually fairly obvious from the article what an editor might expect to have to do. Our citations and references 'guidelines' produce a (to me) bewildering variety of 'correct' procedures - that of course only work if a particular article is internally consistent. There is no requirement at all that articles on similar subjects be consistent.

Haswell-Smith, Hamish (2004) The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh. Canongate. Pages 314–26.

Barrow, G.W.S., “The Reign of William the Lion”, in Scotland and Its Neighbours In the Middle Ages, (London, 1992), pp. 67–89.

McDonald, Hugh (1910). Rambles Round Glasgow. John Smith & Son, 197.

(1 November, 1973) "Oral Questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs". Dáil Éireann. Retrieved on 17 January 2007. 

All the above are gleaned (with a minimum of effort) from featured articles or lists on Scottish subjects. The alternative to the currently confusing and rather amateur-looking approach is an editorial group of some kind to create consistency and a genuine house style. I am not holding my breath. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 13:55, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error in web site footnotes

You need the http:// in order for web link footnotes to work correctly. This is missing here and in the main citation section. (so you need http://www.example.org not just www.example.org). Should this be changed? MDuchek (talk) 23:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Please add them. Gimmetrow 23:52, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template based implementation examples

Comments on template based implementation examples to overcome difficulties with editing due to our non-see-what-you-get editing interface led me to add:

See Category:Specific source templates for some template based implementation examples.

to the page. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] copy-edits

FYI: I did some copy-edits in a couple of places. I don't believe I changed the substance of anything. You can review the total of my edits with this diff. --Lquilter (talk) 01:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

"To give a footnote an unique identifier" -> "To give a footnote a unique identifier" Why? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:50, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Probably related to this. (It is "A unique" by American standards, but with British it is "An Unique.") -- Boracay Bill (talk) 12:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Nothing to do with BrE or AmE, as far as I can tell (there's only one answer in that link about AmE/BrE distinctions, and I don't think it correct). Per Fowler: "A is now usual also before vowels preceded in fact though not in appearance by the sound of y or w". As the link Boracay Bill offers, "unique" is "yoo-neek", so begins with "y", so requires suggests "a". Carre (talk) 15:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC) (edited by Carre (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

[edit] From Talk:Morayshire Railway

also posted at Template talk:Reflist

This section contains footnotes. I beleive for consistency that [1] 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)

Rockfang has forgotten the general rule WP:CONSENSUS. As this page says about such issues: However, as with all citation styles, consensus should be achieved on the talk page before implementing such a change. Talk about reasonably, and reach agreement, or leave it as it was. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually I have not. I just re-read WP:CONSENSUS. In it, is the line:

If we find that a particular consensus happens often, we write it down as a guideline, to save people the time having to discuss the same principles over and over.

In this case, consensus was reached with Wikipedia:FN#How_to_use. I'm not going to every single article's talk page to ask for consensus if the article doesn't follow Wikipedia:FN#How_to_use. In fact, most articles I've viewed so far already meet this guideline. I do have a suggestion though. If you don't like the guideline, feel free to debate it on it's talk page. Maybe consensus there will change. Until it does, I will continue to apply the guideline to articles I come across. --Rockfang (talk) 22:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Please see Bold, Revert, Discuss. If you are the only user who cares, fine: you are consensus. But if you are reverted, as you have been, stop and discuss. (And it really is no more trouble, in the long run, to begin by posting "Does anybody care if we switch?" on the talkpage, and wait 24 hours. You can even make a template with your argument, although it should go in your userspace.) The size of footnotes is not the Most Important Thing; this page does not excuse you from the burden of common civility, especially since it says to discuss these matters.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I think, as a result of this conversation, that the recommendation should be made fuzzier, precisely to avoid this sort of rule-mongering. The article that brought this up has, at the moment, exactly 10 footnotes; it may have 9 (or 1, or 11) the next time it's rewritten. They aren't citations, but note the 2005 value of 19th-century currency, so it may be more important than usual to have them legible. How about "generally appropriate with less than a dozen" and "more than half a dozen" to allow some slack, and a comment that articles will differ on which looks best?

I've used {{reflist}} with a single note, myself, to mark that it differed from the rest of the stub, so we may simply want to say it depends. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I have been using {{reflist}} as a rule, even with a single reference. The argument of issues with text size would have been a great reason to forbid use of the reflist template, but it seems farfetched at best to say that those with weak vision will be better able to read the smaller text because there are ten or more references. Both for consistency and for distinguishing references from the rest of the text, there seems to be little reason to have a hard and fast restriction on use of the template when there are fewer than 10 references. There are few better examples of arbitrary rule creep than the 10-reference cutoff. Furthermore, it astounds me that anyone would spend their time on this encyclopedia going from page to page, counting the references and removing the template where the count is under ten. Isn't there anything else that needs work here? Alansohn (talk) 03:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to update this page as well: I've decided to give up trying to show my side on this matter. From now on, if I change articles to fit WP:FN and someone reverts it, I'm just gonna leave it. But I do appreciate how you beleive there is a certain way I should spend my time editing Wikipedia. --Rockfang (talk) 06:28, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

"Furthermore, it astounds me that anyone would spend their time on this encyclopedia going from page to page, counting the references and removing the template where the count is under ten."

Likewise, why would anyone change a perfectly functional <references /> to {{reflist}}? Gimmetrow 19:09, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

{{reflist}} can look better, especially for a stub with one reference. I've rewritten; if someone wants to tweak this, I don't particularly care. I hope it will be harder to make the revised text into a Rool, to be enforced at all costs. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it looks like a ton of text for a simple notion. Why must everything be so complicated? I'm just concerned about drive-by editors converting references/ to reflist; sometimes that's the *only* edit made. Really, a change of such enormous magnitude must be discussed on the article talk page for at least a month first, preferably after notifying every editor ever involved with the article. Gimmetrow 20:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I immodestly think it was a decent list of points to consider, and post it here in case it is ever wanted again:

The choice between {{reflist}} and <references /> is a matter of style; the difference between them is that {{reflist}} incorporates a <small> command, which makes text 10% smaller, and can take an argument for multiple columns. {{reflist}} does save some space, although the saving is unlikely to matter for a dozen footnotes or fewer; it also makes the footnotes look different than the text, which is sometimes desirable. On the other hand, <references /> is more readable, which can be particularly important when the footnotes contain substantive assertions as well as citations. The choice should be made by the consensus of discussion at each page; Wikipedia does not have a general rule.

regards, Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multi-column references and firefox bug

See also Talk:Emma Goldman#philosophy, footnotes; there appears to be a bug in current versions of Firefox, and possibly other browsers, relating to the use of multi-column references. When pressing the "^" to go back from references to the main article prose, from columns 2 or 3, the reference numbering gets screwed up.

Anyone have any ideas of fixes here in wikipedia/Mediawiki? Should we be concerned about it? Should we just wait for the browser developers to fix the bug? Replies here or the aforementioned talk page appreciated. Carre (talk) 14:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes problem

Has someone changed something so that footnotes no longer work the way they used to? Take a look at this page to see what I mean: pages which use <ref name="name" /> (with the quotes) no longer show up correctly. This will affect thousands of pages. Firsfron of Ronchester 00:11, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, nevermind, it looks like it was a simple formatting error. Whew! :) Firsfron of Ronchester 00:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. It looked like the definition and uses did not match names exactly. Gimmetrow 00:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone getting this red <ref> error on their page. I see it on Cortana and Zits. -- VegitaU (talk) 22:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I guess I should read the notice at the top. -- VegitaU (talk) 22:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbers and Letters/References V. Notes

One thing is certain, many different methods are being utlized throughout Wiki to list sources, citations, notes and references. From my perspective, two things need to be accommodated: source citations/references and informational notes/footnotes. I have been using this article as a reference: Alcibiades, per Wikipedia:Footnotes. But it is awkward and doesn't allow multiple references to the same note. It seems to me that all that would be required to standardize this is a separate letter-based reference system. So that <ref> enters numbered references 1.,2.,3., etc. and <xref> (for example) enters text notes a.,b.,c., etc. Then the two can use the exact same script software and co-exist on the same page with no confusion. One must only learn one system which applies to both purposes. Anyway, just my two-cents. Frankly I am perplexed by the myriad of explanations and links to all of the footnote/reference information. Where should this suggestion be made to best be acted upon?--Mac128 (talk) 05:45, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

That's an excellent idea. I did the references and footnotes in Elvis Presley and the footnotes are in need of a new format, as they're all manual. So if one is removed, it doesn't automatically bump up the letter like what happens when a ref is removed. And when info is moved around, then the footnotes come out of order in the article. Messy. I definitely like this idea. Lara❤Love 06:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Love, I see that you used the deprecated {{fn}} and {{fnb}} template pair there. Best to replace them with {{ref}} and {{note}} or, possibly, other templates in that family. I could cobble up some usage examples here, but it would likely be messy if multiple ref links to a single note target were involved. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 11:34, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Mac128 — First, I'll comment that I don't particularly like the looks of the links and backlinks produced by {{cref}} & {{cnote}}. Alternative templates which provide similar functionality are {{ref}}, {{note}} and others in that same family (see the docs).

Regarding hooking multiple refs to one note, that tends to produce unwieldy lists of backlinks, with confusion over which backlink to click. this is sometimes dealt with by not providing backlinks and expecting users to use the browser's Back button to navigate from the note back to the ref.

Having said that, here's a working example showing one way to target a single note from multiple refs, using the Back button to navigate back, with cosmetics similar to {{cref}}:

Some text [[#mynote_a|a&#91;›&#93;]] more text [[#mynote_b|b&#91;›&#93;]] more text but ref note a again [[#mynote_a|a&#91;›&#93;]].

which produces:

Some text a[›] more text b[›] more text but ref note a again a[›].

and, in Notes:

{{anchor|mynote_a}}'''a:''' The text of note a.<br>

{{anchor|mynote_b}}'''b:''' The text of note b.<br>

which produces:

a: The text of note a.

b: The text of note b.

Yes, that's ugly. It could be beautified by putting it into a pair of templates like {{myref}} & {{mynote}} but, as you say, we've already got too many sets of alternative referencing methods.

IMO, cite.php (the mechanism behind <Ref>...</ref> footnoting) needs to be modified to

1. Enable editor control of the ordering of refs expanded at the <References/> tag (Bugzilla Bug 12498 proposes a cite.php extension which attempts to do this and, incidentally, segregates the clutter of footnote/citation internals away from the article prose where a footnote is referenced).
2. Allow multiple separate groups of expanded References (Bugzilla Bug 6271 proposes a cite.php extension which attempts to do this). -- Boracay Bill (talk) 06:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Does using the {{note}} format work the same as the cite.php ref format? Or do all of these require you to name them? That's the problem I have with the {{fn}} format. When one is removed, there's a break in the sequence, less you go and update all subsequent notes. Elvis has more than 30 footnotes and more than 200 references. A format that works in letters the way ref works in numbers, that's what I'm hoping for. Lara❤Love 16:07, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Boracay Bill, all of these are excellent ideas. I had not seen the Docs page before, but it doesn't surprise me given the wide array of footnote pages, that don't seem to be organized in any particular fashion. Nevertheless, my MAIN GOAL is to get an automatic numbering system that will co-exist with {{ref}}, {{note}}. None of the methods I've seen are particularly automatic or "idiot proof" – a must for Wkik. It doesn't matter if it's letters, Roman numerals or what. As for the ability to have multiple references to the same footnote, I don't really see a problem with it. I agree the end result is a little jumbled and hard to navigate, but nevertheless it is there and the reader can always use the back-button, moreover it is fully automated. Deleting a reference doesn't change the (unless one deletes the primary reference so, I think it is a good idea to always post the full reference, not a shortcut).--Mac128 (talk) 22:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

---

I posted the following in Wikipedia_talk:Citing sources. I'm copying it again here as it seems to relate to the discussion above. The only thing I'd add just now would be that I initially thought letters might be the best alternative identifiers for discursive notes too, but then I remembered that <ref>'s multiple back-links already use letters, so perhaps roman numerals is the way to go.

---

It'd be good if we had an easy to use 'notes' equivalent to go with <ref>. So, in addition to <ref>'s numbered references for citations, we could have something distinctive and separate for discursive notes. I'd suggest that these could have automatic assignment of roman numerals to coexist with and compliment <ref>'s Arabic numerals, for example <nb> and <notes /> tags (or <nbi> and <notesi /> tags) which automatically generated separate numbered notes.

At the moment this can be achieved as in the following...

Example text,^[i] more example text.^[ii] A second appearance of a note.^[ii]

Notes

1. ^ This is an example discursive note.
2. ^ ^{a b} Discursive notes can be shown separately from references or citations - giving a neater appearing alternative compared to having mixed "Notes and references" or "Notes and citations" sections. This is an example of such a note. It is not generated via the Footnotes method (i.e. via use of <ref> and <references/> tags). Instead it uses hard-coded wikilink values to link forward and back to and from the notes and their reference points.

However, if you look at the editing behind the example above you'll see it involves a degree of html coding that would make it something of a chore to maintain.

I'm not a wiki developer. Does anyone have any suggestions how this idea for automatically generated distinctive roman numeral identified notes might be further progressed?

--SallyScot (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citation details in external links section

I was just informed that a ref on 2007 WD5 was broken. If you look at the 23:35, 2 January 2008 version (Ref 8 does not show up). If you look at the 21:35, 3 January 2008 version the links shows "no text was provided". I fixed it by moving the citation details to top ref (edit details). Has something occurred on wikipedia to prevent putting citation details in the external link sections? The article still shows that reference as only cited once when it is cited twice. -- Kheider (talk) 20:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

When <references /> or {{reflist}} is encountered, the reference info which had been encountered earlier in the article in <ref>...</ref> reference definitions is expanded into a numbered list of footnotes. <ref>...</ref> reference definitions placed subsequent to this point do not contribute to this expansion. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 02:15, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] But I want to create footnotes in the academic sense! How do I do it?

Hi. I have a lovely reference section for the Wikipedia article I am editing, so all well and good. But, in addition to a reference section citing academic sources, I also want a footnote section where I can elaborate on a certain statement or point made in the main text. How on earth do you do this in Wikipedia? I think Wikipedia lacks the function to do this and it is surprisingly appalling! AppleJuggler (talk) 08:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

You have a number of options here:

• Mix footnotes and references. I have seen some paper publications that do this, for instance the Skeptical Inquirer.
• Do your footnotes by hand^†
• Use Harvard citations (ugh) for your references and ref tags for your footnotes.

^†like this

But in general, you should try and avoid footnotes. They were very much in vogue in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, but they're slowly falling out of favour. Have you ever seen footnotes in a highly-regarded modern encyclopedia? I haven't. --Slashme (talk) 11:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The first method, in particular, works well when the elaboration concerns the citation more than the text itself; see, e.g. here. Kirill 13:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see Gettysburg Address for the mixed use of citations and other notes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Slashme's view above. Footnotes, by any of a number of means of markup technique, are essential in Wikipedia; being policy to WP:Cite in order to WP:Verify. Traditional encyclopaediae use the preeminance of its named contributing authors or named editors, and it is on their reputation that entries gain the credibility of the readership. In a wiki where it is not individual editors own personal opinions that count (for WP:No original research), it is instead the citing from WP:Reliable sources that gives us a far more dynamic and openly transparent knowledge base.

As for mix of citation and elaboration of points, I prefer using "References" section for bullet-pointed sources used as basis for the whole article, and then "Footnotes" or "Notes" for verification/expansion on specific points; the latter being either formal citations (using cite templates if preferred) or free text explanations - either may be enclosed within the <ref>...</ref> tags. David Ruben ^Talk 17:09, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

What a fantastic and informative response to my query. In current journal articles across academia, footnotes are still widely used to briefly elaborate on a certain point made in the text without having to break the flow of the main narrative. This is exactly what I want to do for my work on the Ilaiyaraaja page. There, I have mentioned that the musician has composed music in many different flavours, such as funk, folk, bossa nova, etc., and just after each of those genres, I wanted to insert a superscript footnote point, in numerals, preferably (e.g., funk1, folk2) and then below give examples of specific songs (1. "Rockabye Baby", 2. "Dum Dee Doo Dah"). But I just realised that I could probably still do that with the existing reference section! How dumb of me. However, Slashme, SandyGeorgia, Davidruben -- THANK YOU very much for taking the time to explain to me in detail about how I can go about it. I appreciate your intelligent and speedy comments very much. All the very best to you all! AppleJuggler (talk) 04:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

It is also possible to run two series of Footnotes, as Pericles does. I prefer the method of Orion (mythology), which mingles full footnotes with mere citations, but it depends on what you're ttying to do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I realize I'm a bit late here, but have a look at History of AI for an example an article with a system of footnotes and harvard references. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 07:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] copying "the whole footnote" with named refs

The guideline says: 'Only the first occurrence of text in a named ref will be used, although that occurrence may be located anywhere in the article. You can either copy the whole footnote, or you can use a terminated empty ref tag that looks like this: <ref name="name" />.'

ISTM that copying "the whole footnote" with named refs is not a good idea. In this edit, I was trying to convert a bare exlink into a named exlink, but my change had no effect. Then I discovered that the named ref was in there three times, so I had to do a second edit. It was very confusing. --Jtir (talk) 19:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote problem

San Francisco State University produces the error, "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named usnews", as does Aquarius (astrology): "Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Roback". In both instances, the references are placed inside of a template. In the former, it is {{Infobox_University}} and the latter, {{ZodiacSign}} although that could just be a coincidence. Could someone look into this problem? Thanks. —Viriditas | Talk 04:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Strange. I moved the first occurrence of the named ref to outside of the infobox, and it's fine. I'll ping Gimmetrow (talk · contribs) and ask him to have a look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I fixed Aquarius (astrology, which had the same error. On both of these, the <ref>...</ref> definition was forn an parameter of the infobox template which did not render in the article. I don't recall anything in cite.php which would be sensitive to template parameters vs. anything else, but I've seen mention recently of a new parser. My guess (and it's just a guess) is that's where the problem lies. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what you just said <smile>, but I still have the error at Aquarius (yes, I reloaded the page). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:34, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

I see you fixed it after you posted here, but we still don't know what caused the problem, right? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I saved this talk page before I saved the fix to the article.

The Aquarius (astrology) article uses the ZodiacSign template. The definition of the footnote named "Roeback" was on parameter of that template named Body part. That template does not support such a parameter. I moved it to a parameter named Domicile which the template does support. cite.php is a Wikimedia software extension which does footnotes. I've looked at cite.php previously, and I don't recall that it should be sensitive to this. I'm guessing that the wikitext which cite.php uses as input is different using that new parser which I've seen mentioned in that wikitext (including ref definitions which that wikitext may contain) in unsupported template parameters are not seen by cite.php. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 05:55, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Error in section "Previewing a single section edit"

The Wikilink in this section displays "citing a footnote from another section" and refers to "Footnotes#Citing_a_footnote_more_than_once"; but that section doesn't exist, so the user is sent to the top of the Footnotes page. Perhaps you mean to send the user to this site, but that's just a guess. In any event, the non-existent link should be removed. Notuncurious (talk) 18:06, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

A bunch of section headings were changed not long ago. Guess this link was missed. Gimmetrow 18:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] op. cit.

Footnotes may have reason to link to the reference section for a title, and op. cit. seems the best way to mask this. Should we modify to include this, which may be useful? should we leave it as WP:IAR? or can you suggest some other phrasing? This is no more dangerous than "above", "below", which routinely masks other internal links. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well this was my view, but I got a rollocking in the FAC room for using it even tho' only ibid was specified at the time. I added it as a specific essentially as a warning to other users. If there is an appetite for resurrecting it that is quite OK by me. Ben MacDui^Talk/Walk 20:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't introduce these because Wiki is a dynamic environment, text order can change, and we have named refs for these purposes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Named references are undesirable for citing books, unless you're repeatedly citing the same page of the book. We should say that too. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Op cit implies only one work by an author, so it has the same type of problem as loc cit. The issue of masked links to a references section is only relevant to footnotes with "short citations" and internal links and no templates. If so other straightforward options for the mask exist: the author, the short title, or the author-page as unit. Gimmetrow 22:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Does it matter where the op. cit. refers? Ordinarily, it would refer to another footnote, which could disappear; my suggestion would refer to the References section, which is not likely to. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. The problem is when you have a reference to "Smith, op cit" already in the text, and then someone adds a new book by Smith. If the old cite were "Smith 2005" or "Smith, My Book", it wouldn't become ambiguous. Gimmetrow 19:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Has this ever actually happened in Wikipedia history?

I was also taken aback by the "Style recommendations" comment that "not all readers are familiar with the meaning of the terms." OK, op. cit. [Shakes head], Pete Tillman (talk) 04:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page number support

I've coded a patch that adds support for a page number attribute to <ref> tags. You use the attribute like so:

<ref name="foo" page="bar" />

There's an example of what it looks like at right. You can see that it collects and presents backlinks to particular pages in the same way that it does backlinks to named references currently. It also sorts references to pages, using a natural sorting algorithm so that everything sorts nicely (as can be seen in the picture).

You can see the listing in the bugtracker here. It would be great if people could review the patch - and fix my code, should it be crappy in spots :) --bainer (talk) 13:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Rather than "page=", please call it "note=" or similar to allow flexibility. This could be used to add annotations or comments to specific named refs. If you really wanted to get fancy, you could automatically add "p." for page only when the note is a number, and sort the numbers separate from the annotation comments. Gimmetrow 19:32, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Strong support for use of "note=" over "page=" if just a single extra option is to be given, particularly for say using cite-web template where one can only indicate a particular sub-section given that there is no such thing as a page number. Alternatively allow both parameters, with "page=" sorting into order as described in teh proposal and "notes=" being an unsorted sequential list (somewhat akin to where we choose bullet-pointed lists for References and numbered-pointed items in Footnotes). David Ruben ^Talk 00:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Quite a few other features for cite.php have been discussed over the years. If this seems likely to be implemented, now would be a good time to either add the other features, or make sure the code is structured to add them. Most desired features could be options in the references tag. Do you feel like trying this? Gimmetrow 06:15, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Which suggested features were you thinking of? Now that I'm familiar with the code I could certainly look at implementing some more of them. I chose this to implement because it's useful to me, and because it fits in well with existing referencing practice here at Wikipedia, so it has a reasonable chance of getting turned on on the Wikimedia sites, and looking at the archives here I don't know if all the suggestions for new features would meet those criteria. --bainer (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, you asked for it. A lot of people would like the ability to define the references without producing a ref mark. Then the references could be defined in a references section and used by name only in the text. You could have<ref name="Smith" note="See also Jones"/> in the text, but <refdef name="Smith">Smith, ''Some Title'', Alpha Press, 2001</refdef> somewhere in a section obviously set aside for references.

I used "refdef" in the example. You could implement this by having any "ref"s appearing after references/ behave as an invisible definition. There is a fairly annoying potential problem with this, although the current code doesn't handle refs after references/ "correctly" anyway. A new refdef tag (or similar) is probably the safest implementation.

With some additional modification, this would allow the references section to be ordered by the order of the refdefs, rather than the order of appearance of notes in the text. But that's probably too big a change to get turned on at once.

Finally, some would like to have two sets of ref tags, one which produces numbered ref marks, and one which produces letters, so the annotations and citations could be split without using the {{ref}}/{{note}} templates. The alternate code might be called <note>, so you could have <note>This is a text annotation</note> in the text, and have <notes/> produce a list of them in order with letters. But perhaps this could be handled with the note= field in unnamed refs? Gimmetrow 02:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Bugzilla bug 12706 proposes functionality similar to this, and provides code to implement it. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 07:00, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the decl= in place of name= is a good way to handle invisible definitions. Can this be combined easily with a note= capability, and the ability to do lettered notes in parallel? Gimmetrow 07:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I am presently traveling, writing this from an internet cafe, and I'm not inclined to download and examine the code to check this. As I recall, however, Bugzilla bug 12706 as implemented in the code supplied with that bug, would allow footnotes without references (what you're calling <note>?) and footnotes with references to be grouped separately in any editor-chosen order desired in the expanded References list and would also allow arbitrary headers to be inserted introducing each group. The wikitext syntax is not as you have proposed, and the expanded References list is similar in format to the current References list except to allow editor-chosen grouping and ordering and to allow the insertion of un-numbered headers into the list. All sorts of alternative enhancements are possible, but finding support for enhancements is difficult. Also, note that the code which does the citations (cite.php) is maintained by Wikimedia, and is used elsewhere than in Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wtmitchell (talk • contribs) 07:54, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, I understand. I'll look at it in more detail. Gimmetrow 08:28, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I came here looking for just such a feature, which will make our reference system much more useful. Is it ready to go? - Nunh-huh 19:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

The patch is still waiting to be reviewed. Although I've tested it myself, people are often blind to errors in their own code, so it needs further testing by other people before it will get implemented. --bainer (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I also support changing the parameter from "page=" to "note=", since the first implies to me that the correct usage would be page=24, while the second is more faithful to what you've done: note="Page 24".

As far as testing, is it possible to move this to test.wikipedia.org, so people can actually play with it?

Finally, I'm personally not at all a proponent of "since you're doing X, why not work on Y and Z too?". I'd rather see smaller changes constantly rolled out than have a big, gnarly one that gets entangled in multiple arguments. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I think "detail=" would be a better attribute name. We already have templates for notes, and footnotes are notes of sort, and if we ever improve the current cite.php system, I suspect it might be with <note> tags, so having a "note" attribute could well be confusing.-- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "detail=" is probably better than "note=", and "note=" better than "page=". In some cases, one might want to include a quote or something rather than just a page number; although I suppose even if it's called "page=", one could still meaningfully put a quote there. In some cases it would be a set of pages, though, not just one page.

The refdef idea would probably be a good thing. Under the current system it can be annoying to try to find which footnote contains the actual text of the reference; or to have the reference deleted when one of the footnotes is deleted. I suppose references that have no footnotes referring to them could still display in the list, so that it would be obvious that they need to be deleted ... or possibly so that they could be used as general references/bibliography for the whole article. If they don't display, a potential problem might be the accumulation of references that are never actually used.

Thank you, bainer, for doing this! Let us know when it's on the test wiki. --Coppertwig (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Straight quotes only supported

Have added a note that only straight quotes are supported for ref naming. This can be a problem where editors prepare text in an external word processor, such as Word, which is set to automatically convert straight quotes into curly (typographers') quotes. Ref names bracketed by curly quotes are ignored, and the ref behaves as though it were unnamed; any later citations of the same ref then cause a citation error. Jayen466 22:41, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

If the external editor can't handle that for that case, it might as well mix up other things in advanced ("ugly") parts of the wiki markup, so there would be hundreds of issues like this. Editors should be purposefully built for wikimedia or text-only. I'm a text-only person myself and I won't tell you what I think of Word. -- Sverdrup (talk) 01:38, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Word has it's uses when preparing long new texts, especially spell-check. Sadly it sometimes takes action that are not wanted. It is the responsibility of the editor using external text-editors to make sure the text inserted in Wikipedia confirms to Wiki formatting. Arnoutf (talk) 07:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, of course, but even Firefox has spell-checking for normal browser editing. I would urge everyone to turn off anything in Word that begins with auto- or smart-. -- Sverdrup (talk) 15:25, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Resizing references

Under WP:FN#Resizing references it states: Although smaller text has some disadvantages, it is common when there is a long list of references (as a rule of thumb, at least ten)....My question is that who decided this "rule of thumb"? Was this based on consensus, or was it just a single editor? And how many agree with this anyway? I feel that having smaller footnotes makes them more distinguishable from external links (in the case of URL references), and makes the footnotes section look more professional (since, from what I've seen, normally footnotes listed in books are smaller than the rest of the text).--十八 19:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with this rule of thumb but would say that short lists can use normal-sized footnotes but don't have to. It depends what footnotes are used for. If it is for references, see e.g. Barack Obama where even small references already bloat the article by one third. If however footnotes are intended to be read like ordinary text, I can see why normal text size is advisable (e.g. List_of_Carnivàle_episodes#Location_notes). I generally like small footnotes for the same reasons as you, but a short list doesn't call me into action. It's a common-sense decision. – sgeureka ^t•c 19:34, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Side note, but if the references section is that huge, can't we put in a feature to collapse the refs to save space?--十八 19:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I seem to remember it being discussed in multiple places and the consensus has always been no because we don't want to hide references. Part of showing verifiability is having the references right there, easy to find and see. Or something like that. Collectonian (talk) 19:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I kind of expected that after I typed out the question. Just wondering.--十八 19:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I personally like the "rule of thumb." While yes, printed books do have footnotes smaller but that is primarily to save space. Along the same lines, we don't really need to compact references unless there are more than 10, which is when it starts looking unwieldy. If reflist's smaller format is considered better from the get go, then why have the references tag at all? Just dump and replace with reflist. But that has not been done and I suspect it won't be done because the point of reflist is not to make distinguishable from the ELs (which is only a problem if the references are badly formatted in the first place), but reflist is used primarily to compact a large references section to save visual space. My view, anyway, and one I think works well for everything I've edited. Regular size refs look fine until around 10, then it starts getting big so you go to reflist. Collectonian (talk) 19:35, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes in sections headings

I somehow imagined that there's a consensus that footnotes shouldn't be used in section headings, but i can't find it anywhere in pages about headings, footnotes or MOS. Is it documented anywhere? --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There is WP:LEAD#Citations -- Boracay Bill (talk) 00:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Footnotes interfering with wikitext readability -- a major concern

First, footnotes is one of the best things ever to happen to wikipedia. Without it there wouldn't be really professional and serious articles like Italian War of 1542–1546. It has also taken Wikipedia articles relating to Web-accessible phenomena to the next level by allowing instant access to deeper sources related to any part of the article.

But unlike infoboxes and tables, which are confined to special places in the article, references and footnotes are coded inline in the wikitext. I think this is a major concern for the Wiki-ness of it all. Suddenly the wikitext...

is not simple [[markup]] like ''this''. Easy to read and understand.

The wikitext has clearly passed into markup where you easily get lost if you don't know the basics of xml-like markup languages, and this is kind of sad.

References are written in place since it is a really sensible idea. References should move with the sourced statement and the note should be updated if the body text is, and vice versa.

It's a hard problem to solve. If a reference is just a simple <ref name="A. Smith"/> it would be a pretty acceptable burden on the wikitext. But then we lose the in-text presence that is so important per above.

Has this been discussed before. I try to mediate this by using more whitespace between sourced sentences; the wiki allows one line break without making a section break. However, that is often not enough. The section Wikipedia:Footnotes#Naming.. strikes me with an idea: in-browser syntax highlighting to shade less content-centric parts like footnotes would help this issue (take the example in the linked section and invert it). -- Sverdrup (talk) 14:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Bugzilla:12796, if implemented, would address this. As submitted, it includes modified cite.php code to implement it. It is awaiting review. It currently has one supporting vote.-- Boracay Bill (talk) 22:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple footnotes

This is just as aesthetic choice, but, as for me, I don't care for long strings of footnotes like this.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} It looks ugly and breaks up the text. (I use Apple's Safari web browser. Perhaps footnotes are less obtrusive in other browsers.) So I usually consolidate the references for a single logical point into a single footnote that lists all the sources.^[6] This may mean that there is some overlap between footnotes and there are occasionally several footnotes that refer to the same page of the same source. I don't see this is as a problem, since, even with the redundancy it still performs the essential functions of citations, i.e. it verifies the text and provides access to further reading. Any one else have an opinion? (I'm writing this in light of a recent edit to the article Chinese room, and this question is also posted on the talk page there.) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 17:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you. I don't think anyone would have a big problem with doing that. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:52, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(ec)The string of footnotes is more informative, as it's possible to look in the refs section and see very easily how extensively a particular source has been used. Ty 17:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

True, but I'm not sure this bit of information serves any purpose. (Except perhaps to help editors to notice that an article relies to heavily on a single page of a single source, I suppose?) Am I missing something? ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:33, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Strange cite error

Hey, can someone look at omega-3 fatty acid and tell me what's up with reference #85? It's saying "no refs named simopoulos2003" when there is one. —Werson (talk) 00:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

It's usually an unclosed ref tag shortly before the one that generates the error. Fixed. Gimmetrow 00:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] BUG: repeated refnums

Hi,

In Matsuo Bashō, the two column-version produces two notes numbered "8" on Firefox... Ref 8 is where the column breaks... I temporarily switched to the one-column version; problem solved...so what's the source of the problem..? ... OK, I just looked at Georg Cantor also. Yep, same problem with repeating refnums whenever the column breaks from one column to the next! Definitely a bug... Ling.Nut (talk) 02:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Another interesting tidbit: If you look at the versions stored in the article's History— I mean via the History, I don't mean reverting to an older version—there's no problem with repeated refnums. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Except I don't see it. What version of Firefox? Does Cantor still have the issue? Gimmetrow 02:41, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Firefox/2.0.0.14 yes Cantor has two notes numbered 33. Thanks! Ling.Nut (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm using Firefox/2.0.0.14 on WinXP and don't see the problem on either article. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 03:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

(undent) Windows Vista here... Also, Chinese Windows. BUT my PC in my office is XP with English Windows, and I think it has the same problem. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:18, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "Footnotes"?

Is there a particular reason why the section containing footnotes is usually given the label "References" or "Notes" rather than the more precise and informative "Footnotes"? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:48, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Just editor preference, all three names are acceptable. I don't know that Footnotes is any more precise or informative. It would probably be more precise to call them Endnotes, and References may in many cases be the most informative title. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citing WP:CITE from here.

The out-of-sequence entry in the Notes section mentions WP:CITE in its explanation of why such out-of-seq entries bad things and what should be done to correct them. However, WP:CITE#Footnotes says to see this article for details about that. This seems a bit circular (Yes, I've made recent edits to this stuff, but just to correct details which had gone stale -- the general problem predates my recent edits). I would try to straighten this out myself, but I'm too pushed for time just now. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 01:30, 9 June 2008 (UTC)