User talk:Paulscrawl/Sandbox

A few highlights on the convoluted evolution of various citation tools, as evidenced most recently (late September 2014) on the (equally convoluted) Citing sources talk thread (web?), Should we improve ref tags?.


 * If Wikipedia had specified and developed a single comprehensive referencing system right from the start, it would probably have been different, and the names of the various page sections and elements would almost certainly have been chosen more carefully and enforced more rigidly. But over something like fourteen years, the several systems that we do have were built up piece by piece; and each new piece has been given a name that is not necessarily the best, but the most suitable of what's left over after everybody else has picked something.

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 * and are quite new; they date back to December 2011; the / system is older by something like seven years, and needs more care in its use so that the right ref links to the right note.  isn't really a system as such, just an alternate form of  without some of the latter's limitations, much like  is  with extra features, or like  is really harvnb wearing a shorter coat with more pockets.

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 * Without being too formal, the rules for references go something like this. 1: WP:V is policy (those other pages that you named are not). 2: if adding sections for notes, references, etc., try to abide by MOS:APPENDIX. 3: if you're editing an existing article, stick with the ref styles and conventions already established in the article (this is WP:CITEVAR), unless there are very good reasons to change it. 4: if you're writing an article from scratch, use any referencing system that you're comfortable with, but be consistent within the article. Consistency isn't required by any policy, but it looks good and does become a requirement if you intend getting an article to FA-Class. 5: don't be afraid to ask for assistance.

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 * I primarily use, mainly because I draw information from a variety of pages on a small number of books (as with NBR 224 and 420 Classes that I mentioned earlier). ... the sole explanatory note is in a separate list with letter identifier instead of numeral. Similarly with this article - here the explanatory notes (lettered again) go first, because one of them is referenced (and the other one ought to be but isn't).

All above from User Redrose64

User J. Johnson summarized my desiderata:


 * As for all that policy and the tools permit citation to done in any style imaginable, we have suffered from lack of: 1) a recommended good practice (newbies want to know a way of citing, not every possible variant), 2) clear and definite terms and concepts (that we can talk about these things without having to constantly define our terms!), and 3) an overall conceptual framework that integrates all the variant conceptions.

Please consider working this up as an illustrated HowTo or essay:
 * 1) GOOD PRACTICES
 * 2) Flowchart decision aid for choosing citation format for a given article.
 * 3) Decision flowchart should make COinS metadata compatibility a key juncture (perhaps even before: new article? Y/N?)
 * 4) Table on good practices
 * 5) Comparing markup and results for sfn & only one or two popular alternatives
 * 6) TERMINOLOGY
 * 7) Definition list (or table?) of common terminology (citing CMOS, etc.).
 * 8) Table applying common terms to relevant WP entities. (Could combine both, at expense of vertical space)
 * 9) Columns: WP-specific names for tools, hyperlinked to tool page, tool doc page, &/or tool Help page.
 * 10) Rows: (3 color-coded sections)
 * 11) Functionality: common terms (linked to definitions from above list; embedded in hover text)
 * 12) Compatibility:
 * 13) with COinS (or move to highlighted Functionality? - depends on emphasis, space)
 * 14) with top WP citation tools (optional, or separate table like Help:CS1, perhaps, again depending on emphasis, space)
 * 15) Dependency: on other WP citation tools
 * 16) Cells: Note level of support, limitations, (links in explanatory footnotes)
 * 17) OVERVIEW
 * 18) Graph of tool dependencies, as in RefToolbar's dependency graph

Resources:
 * 1) Policy: WP:Verifiability
 * 2) Guidelines: WP:MOS & WP:Citing_sources
 * 3) Information (consensus) page: WP:Inline_citation
 * 4) Various non-binding Help pages, Howto articles, and template documentation pages.

Consider making as series of short, sweet, interlinked Wikipedia essays, written in style of an appendix to  Wikipedia:The Missing Manual.