:Well, okay for me, but it is far from a nice view for the reader! Your link says me that only dashes (— or – ?) are an exception. But here I get a confirmation that this edit might be good: the in-house style of Nature. In fact I myself see a difference between the punctuation that closes a sentence i.e. . ! ? (ref(s) behind those: the refs refer in fact to the meaning of/in the whole sentence) and all other punctuation in the middle of a sentence like ,;- —  there I would make a plea for ref(s) immediately following the notion that needs the reference. But, I'm here only very seldom; I work on the Dutch Wikipedia. Have it your way. I guess my point of view is best for any reader who is not involved in editing on the wikipedia or hates rules for the rules (some "-ism"). I hope you see the logic in this slight madness of mine. Maybe you can organize a voting about this. [just shout!]