Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 6

Mixing footnotes and references
Please see also /archive5 and 6271 and possibly give your vote. --pabouk 14:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I notice that it doesn't seem possible to keep separate lists of (additional information) footnotes and of references using the is a "bonus" that only benefits those with browsers (i.e. the Mozilla suite) that can see it. Other browsers see the vanilla version. It's a feature, not a bug Circeus 16:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)


 * But that's still not fair. :P I like how Wiki is rendered on MSN much better than on Firefox. Is there a way to add the feature to the MSN browser is what I'm asking then.--  十  八  22:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Combining adjacent footnotes - style rec?
During the FAC process for Islam (recently promoted), we struggled with the issue of how to combine adjacent footnotes, because the consensus among experienced editors seems to be that one should do so. However, we could not find an existing satisfactory example of how this can be done in an aesthetically pleasing matter, so we invented one by using bulleted lists. (See here: Islam). My question is do people think that we should make it an official "Style recommendation" to combine adjacent footnotes, and furthermore should we present this method as an example? - Merzbow 04:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * If anything is to be recommended I would want it to be separation by semicolon, which is pretty standard -- e.g. a brief search turns up this (scroll down to 4.3.1). I have not seen the format you used at Islam in any printed matter that I can recall, so I would not recommend it. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Semicolons work well with simple cites like "Joe Smith (2003), p.14; Jack Smith (2001), p.2". However, when you start combining complex cite templates like cite web, cite news, etc. with simple cites or with each other, the cites become almost impossible to distinguish visually. Separating with dashes and bullets wasn't much better; only forcing them onto separate lines made things legible. - Merzbow 05:21, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Bullet lists are used elsewhere, for instance note171 in Hezbollah. When a statement has multiple citations and the cite templates are used, bullet lists look presentable and can even make the edit text a bit more readable. If editors are not aware of this technique, then perhaps a mention is in order, but this technique has limited applicability and I am hesitant to *recommend* this. Bullet lists of short notes look very peculiar to me, and this covers most of the notes in Islam. For example, note30 could easily be listed with semicolons. Gimmetrow 14:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Interesting; I'll have to experiment further. Anyways, what I want to propose for the style rec section is this:


 * To decrease clutter, it is recommended that immediately adjacent footnotes be merged into single footnotes. The standard method is to separate individual notes or citations inside a footnote with semicolons. For more complex footnotes, bulleted lists can used to break out information onto separate lines.


 * - Merzbow 18:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

where to place ref tags when using a blockquote
The guideline doesn't say where to place ref tags when using a blockquote. The natural place would seem to be at the end of the sentence introducing the blockquote, so that is what I did here. The previous version has the ref tags after the blockquote, which produces an isolated note link. --Jtir 16:41, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
 * They should definitely not be placed after the blockquote, as that causes a floating ref mark. At the end of the sentence introducing the blockquote works fine. I've also seen them placed at the end of the quoted content inside the blockquote. This is parallel to citing a regular quote (without blockquote), but the ref mark is formatted in blockquote-style. Gimmetrow 16:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Footnotes are obsolete in the information age
Footnotes were designed for paper. For a wiki what works better is a popup with relevent information and clicking takes you directly to the source if it is online. Instead what we have, is you have to click once to get information about the reference, and then another click to jump to the source. I find it better when a reference is cited just using the external link syntax [], that way I can see what is being cited by hovering with the mouse and detail info is just a click away, rather then two clicks. Just my opinion. What's yours? Daniel.Cardenas 20:13, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * But they're not obsolete on Wikipedia. We're using the technology which we have.  It is being worked on in several ways; I think that the WikiCite which is linked to in the project page is undergoing testing.  Also, the links are there for verification not for your convenience. (SEWilco 21:08, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
 * How do I find the project page? Thanks, Daniel.Cardenas 22:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Scroll up to the top of this page and find the tab which says "project page". (SEWilco 23:04, 3 June 2007 (UTC))
 * There are many reasons to use footnotes: (1) Abundance of paper references being used on Wikipedia; (2) Inability of our basic embedded external link technology to record important information about online sources, such as author, date accessed, title, etc.; (3) wider support for footnotes than popups in browers that our users have access to; etc. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)