Template:Note short footnote style 2/doc

Usage
This message should be placed only on article talk pages for articles which appear to follow the particular shortened footnote style.

To use this template, add this code to an article’s talk page: Where sources is the name of the section or sections where full citations are listed. The default is Cited works.


 * Example:

This produces:

Using this template adds the talk page to the hidden maintenance category Category:Unconfirmed uses of sfn style 2 for tracking purposes.

Short footnote style 2
As stated in the manual of style and the Citing sources guidance, Wikipedia has no house style and contributors may choose the style they believe is appropriate for an article. An article style should be consistent, and changes to the style must be arrived at by consensus. In this particular style, all footnotes indicating source use shortened footnotes either either with plain text eg (Lincoln 1865. p. 23) or with templates such as sfn or harvnb.

Advantages

 * All sources may be organized in sorted list(s) in the reference section. Example article Egyptian vulture.
 * For editors not using the Visual Editor, text is uncluttered with citation information.

Disadvantages

 * For readers on mobile devices, (currently 63% of Wikipedia users) full citations will no longer appear as a popup at the bottom of the screen and will instead see the shortened footnate. The full citation is available but only by clicking the short footnote which will jump the reader to the citation's location in the cited works section.  For non mobile readers this has less impact- to see the full citation the reader must simply hover the mouse over the short footnote.
 * Short footnote templates such as sfn and harvnb are difficult to employ for contributors relying on the Visual Editor.
 * Higher maintenance. Due to the lack of familiarity with short footnote styles, over time articles will accumulate citations using the more conventional citation style and will require periodic maintenance to convert non conformant citations.