Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)/Archive 5

message: Disclaimer: I have very little technical knowledge of Cite.php, so I don't know the relative ease or difficulty in making these changes. I am, however, interested in improving and using the footnote and citation systems in Wikipedia. --J. J. 10:07, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooh. Well, silly me. Guess I need to polish up on my WP poll-reading skills; kind of sad that I managed to miss the point after reading through everything so thoroughly. However, Wikipedia:Straw polls reads, "Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy. Its primary method of finding consensus is discussion, not voting." I'll see what I can do to revise; we should be getting paid for this, Niko ;-) --J. J. 04:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've decided to keep the summary mainly the way it is with a couple of exceptions. I've added a justification to the end of the first paragraph of Purpose. I've also added  strikeouts to the resolved issues (only two of them). Even though they've been voted on, several of the "resolved" and "rejected" ideas still have active bugs and/or are still being discussed. Leaving the list the way it is makes it easy to refer to the issues by number, too. --J. J. 13:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overview of major changes this month 

message: Wonderful job! Only one important comment regarding the poll: All points have been agreed by 33vs5 users. The poll is in #Poll, and not in discussion. Those "disagree" comments were posted by users after the initiation of the poll. I apologize for rushing the poll and not giving the chance to these users to express their disagreement, but I guess the end result justifies my impatience. JJ, could you please amend your own text accordingly? Also, a suggestion: care to make ===Resolved=== and ===Rejected=== sections to get rid of those from the other  ===Non-Resolved=== issues?:NikoSilver: 21:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooh. Well, silly me. Guess I need to polish up on my WP poll-reading skills; kind of sad that I managed to miss the point after reading through everything so thoroughly. However, Wikipedia:Straw polls reads, "Wikipedia is not an experiment in democracy. Its primary method of finding consensus is discussion, not voting." I'll see what I can do to revise; we should be getting paid for this, Niko ;-) --J. J. 04:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've decided to keep the summary mainly the way it is with a couple of exceptions. I've added a justification to the end of the first paragraph of Purpose. I've also added  strikeouts to the resolved issues (only two of them). Even though they've been voted on, several of the "resolved" and "rejected" ideas still have active bugs and/or are still being discussed. Leaving the list the way it is makes it easy to refer to the issues by number, too. --J. J. 13:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General responses

message: Overall I think the project page is well written, concise and to the point. However the section "Disadvantages and future improvements" reads too much like a back-and-forth debate for the average reader. I suggest the salient points should be drawn out of that, summarized and perhaps reference made to other articles (i.e., preserving most of the links that are already there). Basically, trying to convey what readrs should get out of that discussion that elevantes it to the main page rather than here on the discussion page (where hopefully readers learn to check out for all their esoteric goodness). --Cplot 00:43, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Disadvantages and future improvements section 

message: What is the best way to refer to different pages in a book?  For example, should I say:
The flowers of the Gangliopensis are green, and attract bees.  In stark contrast, the Gangliofoosis has red flowers, and is pollenated by elephants.
thereby making two endnotes for one source?  Is there a better way? --Slashme 10:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the way you've done it is fine. There have been several bug recommendations for this issue, but no solutions; see particularly Meta:Talk:Cite/Cite.php#Suggestion:_sub-reference_attribute_for_ref_tags. There really isn't any consensus on this issue, which is why I keep emphasizing policies to differentiate citations from references. See several of my July comments above for more details. --J. J. 14:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would make a separate "References" section full of fancy  tags and just put hand-written author-[title]-page citations in the footnotes themselves.  (Some people don't seem to like the idea of doing any of this by hand, though, so YMMV.) Kirill Lokshin 15:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation of different locations/page numbers in a work 

message: I was wondering if anyone had advice on a ref system for Planetary habitability. When I started the ref's I used fn/fnb for explanatory footnotes and the mn/mnb for actual references. The latter is Wikipedia:Footnote4, which I've discovered is defunct and used on only a few articles. However, I further complicated it by separating my primary and secondary sources, which I think is useful on a long ref list for people looking to pick out good sources from generic ones; footnote4 allows me to do this as the numbers can be off sequence (ie., primary 1, 3, 6 followed by secondary 2, 4, 5). Is there anyway to keep the page ordered exactly as it is now, but with an accepted ref system? Marskell 14:20, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A complicated page 

message: Philip Baird Shearer provided a link to #Every sentence should have a reference? above, but this section seems to have disappeared - I can't find it on this page or in the archives, am I missing something? Thanks, heqs 22:32, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just went to this page's history and clicked on Philip's July 5th entry. To answer your question, it's now in the archive. Centrix didn't create the archive link correctly. --J. J. 03:01, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cheers. heqs 09:43, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: What happened to the "Every sentence should have a reference?" discussion?

message: I'd like to suggest that footnotes should be placed before the punctuation (as in everyday English grammar), and abandon the peculiar Chicago style of putting them at the start of the next sentence/paragraph. At the very least, both styles should be acceptable, rather than ordering everyone to follow the US/Chicago rules, which look ghastly and illiterate to UK users at least. - MPF 10:54, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been debated to death (including above).  If they look so ghastly, please identify a mainstream style manual that supports the positioning you suggest and perhaps a few journals or publications that actually use it. --Spangineeres (háblame) 11:57, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "As in everyday English grammar?" MPF, can you name one English-language book from a mainstream publisher that puts footnotes before periods/full stops? SlimVirgin (talk) 12:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A quick look through my books soon reveals Dallimore, W. & Jackson, A. B. (1966) A Handbook of Coniferae and Ginkgoaceae (Edward Arnold, London), which does so consistently. - MPF 14:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anything a bit more recent than that? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 14:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm curious if there's actually been any evidence provided that this is a UK/US issue.  The Chicago style seems to be ubiquitious in the British books I have in my posession, in any case; and the Oxford & Cambridge style guides I was able to find online call for it as well. Kirill Lokshin 14:58, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Position of footnotes

message: I recently added a large section to TeX font metric. The specification is drawn from its canonical source---the documentation from the source code to TFtoPL. It's footnoted at the bottom of the Specification section now, but it really applies to all of it. I didn't want to just drop it manually into the References section. What should I do here?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grendelkhan (talk • contribs) .
:Is this a question about how to add multiple footnotes to the same source, or a question about what points in the addition would benefit from having a footnote pointing to the source you were using?  Jkelly 17:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I have done in the past is put the citation right at the start of the relevant text. Then include in the note/reference a statement about the scope of the cited source and which sentences/paragraphs or sections of the Wikipedia article are covered by the source cited. However, you have to be ready to provide individual citations for each sentence if other editors demand it. --JWSchmidt 18:29, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All of the source for that entire section really is the specification document. I can break it down further by section, but then I'd have a stack of references saying something like "TFtoPL, section 4". I've noticed that references to specific parts of works (e.g., page numbers) aren't used very often; is that a viable alternative? grendel|khan 18:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: In the case of overarching references, I say you either add a single note to the same ref for each paragraph, or you add the reference in the reference section and only use footnotes for potentially contentious statements. Circeus 18:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nothing about is is particularly contentious, but I do want the reader to be able to see where I got all of this from. grendel|khan 18:59, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I had started to make a comment about this earlier today, but I guess I got distracted and forgot about it! I wanted to mention that it doesn't hurt to just mention the source at the beginning of the section. Something like, "This section is a summary of the TFtoPL guidelines.The full reference to TFtoPL would go here, but I'm not going to include it since this is just a sample." --J. J. 03:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good idea. I went with "The canonical specification of the TFM format is embedded in the source code of the program TFtoPL", and I think it flows naturally while conveying the source information early on. grendel|khan 06:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where does the footnote go if it applies to a huge section? 

message: The first section of the article contains "Also, Cite.php footnotes are not the only way to make footnotes. Many articles use templates to create footnotes." When I first read this, I thought this meant that Cite.php and citation templates were competing systems to create footnotes, but I have since learned that Cite.php creates the footnote numbers and the navigation aids, the citation templates create the content of the citation, and they can be used independently. I'd like to see this passage rewritten. --Gerry Ashton 18:23, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's referring to / templates, not to  and its ilk. Kirill Lokshin 18:24, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Introductory section

message: At Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style recommendations:
: Enclosing the  tag in a references-small class div, like this:  is recommended.
I thought this was an option, and whether it is a good idea was controversial, or at least depended on the context and editors' preference.  This also contradicts the statement in the next section "Resizing is not encouraged as a standard technique in all articles."  —Michael Z. 2006-08-01 18:33 Z
:I've changed the wording to be a bit more conservative and fit common practice. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Style recommendation 

message: Is it possible for website links in sentences to be put into the same style as footnotes? I was hoping to do this for BBC News, and if successful, others. Wikiwoohoo 18:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Putting the link between refs makes it a footnote with a full URL hotlink: http://mysite.com Or, use [ ] and provide an alt text: MySite - Mine  Gimmetrow 18:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your help there. It works and the article looks much better as a result. Take a look: BBC News. Thanks again! Wikiwoohoo 19:44, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Website links 

message: Is the references form at new references format policy?  Why is it being "pushed" on the Wikipedia: Community Portal? SteveMc 00:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen the / system used in conjunction with Harvard refs, and I've seen it used to separate "notes" from pure citation "references". While the cite.php system has some advantages (and some disadvantages), I thought it was somewhat controversial to change an entire article from ref/note to cite.php without prior consensus. In fact the ref/note templates say cite.php is not mandatory. Gimmetrow 02:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New references format 

message: I added to the disadvantages section: "Incomaptible with citation templates like , which encode reference meta-information in a computer-friendly form."  I was referring to citation templates.  If I try to move the source text (the invocation of the cite template) into a <TT>...</TT> pair, it gets all screwed up when it renders.  I assumed this was just a current limitation.  Then, on my talk page, Gimmetrow wrote: "I saw your addition at WP:FN about a bug with cite conference. I looked at Sanitization and didn't see an obvious problem. Can you explain what the problem is, maybe it can be fixed easily?"  So maybe I'm missing something? --DragonHawk 02:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I put in the cite templates for 4 of your refs, and I don't see the problem. (Note: I am not saying you should use them, and you are entirely welcome to revert back to how you had it. I just wanted you to point out the problem so I know what you are referring to.) Gimmetrow 02:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Okay, apparently I'm on crack.  I swear it didn't work when I tried it.  I'll remove my comment from this project page.  Thanks, User:Gimmetrow.  --DragonHawk 03:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cite templates 

message: "N.B. This format is not mandatory; editors are free to use a different method. See How and where to cite sources."
Why is it not mandatory? Why do we even have a manual of style if we don't even prescribe its use? Stevage 16:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Why do we allow so many different styles? ;-) Kirill Lokshin 16:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why, god, why? 

message: I've pretty familar with footnotes so this is not a matter of the top footnote not being described.  They worked fine and still do work fine if viewed via history (even the current).  Please take a look and advise.  FairTax is missing 1,2, & 4.  Go to the same page via history (current version) and the footnotes are fine.  What's up?!  I've never seen this problem before and I've tested it on two computers. Morphh 17:40, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See above; fixed with a ?action=purge  Gimmetrow 17:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That did it - Thanks!  Very Weird - Hope they fix this bug. Morphh 17:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

text: bugzilla:7162 fixed.  Mangled articles may require another edit to be repaired. (SEWilco 15:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Different problem.  Wikipedia:Village pump %28technical%29#Gallery tag messes up references refers to bugzilla:6164.  (SEWilco 02:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnotes missing

message: In McCarthyism there are a lot of footnotes, some of them using <ref name=whatever>. The feature wherein clicking on the "^" or the "abc etc." of a named ref isn't working in all cases, and I can't see that anything's wrong with the way the refs are written. To see this in (non)action, click on a footnote in the McCarthyism#Victims of McCarthyism section and then try to hop back up to the main text. Most (but not all) of the jump-back links don't work. KarlBunker 19:03, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (Two minutes later) Aaaand now it IS working. Same article, no edits since it wasn't working... Oh well; never mind, I guess :-)  KarlBunker 19:06, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again not working for me (wasn't working yesterday either). Waiting for it to sort itself out again. -- Миборовский 02:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that as as the case yesterday, purging the cache will fix the bug. However, it's painfully slow for graphic-intensive articles (like the one I'm writing now). -- Миборовский 02:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  jump-back bug? 

message: I'm seeing these codes fairly often now:
* 
* 
* 
What do editors think about mentioning them here as options? Some browsers don't display them as two columns. Gimmetrow 21:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, but nothing's lost if they don't, right?  I don't see the harm. JulesH 09:37, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two column forms 

message: Hi, I'm wondering if the editors of this page consider this to be a full guideline. The tag at the top is different from more accepted guidelines, and that makes me wonder. Also, this page notes that it is entirely optional. Guidelines are not "optional" per se, but are flexible. This really doesn't look like a guideline to me. However, if it really really is a guideline one thing i'm proposing is that you use the Template:guideline, rather than the tag you have now. Please discuss it here (i'll be posting this message on other pages that have this same tag). Thanks! Fresheneesz 20:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This guideline is "optional" because the use of footnotes is optional. I object to the removal of the guideline tag. Gimmetrow 10:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Is this a guideline?

message: Sometimes a phrase has multiple references. While they could be combined into one note (using a bulleted list), many editors keep them separate so the individual references can be named and reused, and it seems many editors put a space between each reference mark.[1] [2] For some window size, this will cause the ref marks to split on two lines, or produce a floater at the end of a paragraph. [3][4] This guideline says that the ref marks should come after puncutation with no spacing; I would like to add that this applies to additional references too, so that notes don't look like 1/2 or 3/4, but like this.[5][6]  Gimmetrow 14:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spacing of multiple references 

message: Regarding the How to use section:
:Place the  tag in a "Notes" or "References" section near the end of the article—the list of notes will be generated here.
The Wikipedia:Guide_to_layout#Notes differentiates between "Notes" and "References" sections—something with which I am in agreement.  I would like to, if possible, change the above line changed to read 
:Place the  tag in a "Notes" section near the end of the article—the list of notes will be generated here.
to conform to this, in order to reduce confusion, and to provide a more definite guide.  Comments? DocWatson42 05:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks for your thoughts, Gimmetrow, Michael. Might cite.php be programmed to interpret any/all "<ref>"/"", "<note>"/"<notes />" and "<fnote>"/"<footnotes />", so no one use might appear to be favo/ured of any other...?  Regards, David Kernow (talk) 03:00, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the distinction between notes and references.  As we're beginning to get increasing numbers of notes citing specific pages, we might consider recommending short title style (e.g., Butzer, Science in Carolingian Times, p. 195.) for repeated notes citing different pages of the same book, leaving the full bibliographical details in a reference list sorted by author and title.  (The last differs from a reference list for Harvard parenthetical references, (Butzer 1993; 195) which are sorted by author and date.)  --SteveMcCluskey 17:27, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is or might there be any consensus or will to widen cite.php's scope, however...? (i.e. add "<note>"/"<notes/>" and "<fnote>"/"<footnotes/>"...?)  David (talk) 01:09, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sounds like a good idea to me, at least for 'note'.  Not sure about the necessity for footnote, as all notes will by definition be footnotes...? JulesH 09:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I guess so, but some folk prefer <references>, some <footnotes>, some <notes>, ...  Regards, David (talk) 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

text:  Would be neat if / produced numbered comments, and <note>/</note> produced lettered comments (a-z, then aa-zz). Gimmetrow 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Use of parallel cite.php for  ref/notes etc with numeric/lettering previosuly discussed (without any input from the software writers) - see archive Wikipedia talk:Footnotes/archive4#Poll where discussion over 3 systems: references, bibliography and footnotes (I had suggested refB, refN and refR) David Ruben  Talk  00:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Notes" versus "References" section title 

message: How should I handle the case where a page has an existing general reference that covers a large amount of content scattered throughout the page, but a specific reference needs to be inserted for a fact that isn't covered by it?
Example here: Microdot
Any suggestions?  Everything I can think of trying just looks stupid. JulesH 09:41, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why can't you cite the specific fact to a specific reference using your system of choice (Harvard, footnote or html link)? Gimmetrow 00:10, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guideline for formatting when there are general references? 

message: Given that the <ref> and  tags can be used for both references and additional-information (non-referential) footnotes, is there a manner in which the system can be used for both whilst having separate sections for the two distinct uses?
That is, can we have separate "footnotes" and "references" sections, both using the  mechanism?
I appreciate that this has likely been answered somewhere already; if so, please point me to the appropriate document. Thanks.
Fourohfour 13:27, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think the cite.php technology currently supports distinct sections using the same mechanism. There are various proposals which would allow cite.php to support such a thing, see Wikipedia_talk:Footnotes/archive4#Poll. Editors who want to separate text expansions from simple citations typically use the cite.php system for the citations, and the / system with letters for the text expansions. Another option is to use Harvard for citations (see WP:CITE), and cite.php for text expansions. Gimmetrow 15:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does combining / and cite.php on the same page work?  Wikipedia:Footnotes#How to use says "The new format cannot be mixed on a page with the old Footnotes3 format—you must pick one or the other."  There's a list article that currently has Footnotes3-style text expansions that I'd like to add cite.php citations to, but I'm wary of doing the work if the two systems are fundamentally incompatible. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 17:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It would be confusing to have two systems using numbers. The basic ref/note uses numbers, so in that sense it is incompatible. However, ref/note contains options to use symbols other than numbers, plus the / templates. For a recently-featured article using both ref/note and cite.php, see Alcibiades. Gimmetrow 19:02, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Gimmetrow! —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Footnotes and References 

message: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, an FAC I have in the process, has a pretty well-referenced reception section. However, I'm worried that some might object on basis of ugliness (I've already got a neutral on it). What's the precedent? Should I investigate alternative ways of referencing, or does precedent favor utility over appearance? --Zeality 16:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind. --Zeality 14:24, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Aesthetic Issues

message: Is it true that
*most writers who read this page just want to know how to write a footnote ASAP?
*writers do not need to know about the implementation underneath the ref tags (except to see the name so they won't get confused and think it's something different if they see Cite.php mentioned elsewhere)? 
*writers certainly don't need to know the implementation (MediaWiki) under the implementation (Cite.php) of the only thing they need to know (ref) to get the job done? 
Thanks. 
TH 03:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ref tags and Cite.php 

message: Kirill, 
I don't undertand. Why would anyone who goes looking for WP:FOOT ever expect to end up at WP:Footnotes? 
Is there any connection except an etymological connection (unimportant for our purposes) between foot and footnote?
Isn't the connection between foot and any form of football a thousand times stronger than any connection between foot and footnote? 
Why not just redirect from WP:FOOT to WWikipedia:WikiProject Football and get Footnotes out of the way? 
TH 19:59, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm, because WP:FOOT has always redirected here, and thus anyone using it expects that?  (In any case, etymological connections are perfectly valid; shortcuts are a convenient shorthand—for which "foot" is quite suitable for "footnote"—rather than something with a deep meaning to it.) Kirill Lokshin 20:26, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Are you offering to correct the many incoming links to WP:FOOT (which most certainly are not referring to football)?  I don't particularly care where the shortcut points to in the long term—although common sense suggests that major guidelines ought to get priority over individual WikiProject pages, because they're far more likely to be linked to in conversation (and thus need the shortcut)—but you can't simply switch the target of a long-standing shortcut on a whim. Kirill Lokshin 20:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Just as arbitrary a shortcut as WP:BALL or WP:SOCCER.  (SEWilco 03:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why would ''anyone'' who goes looking for WP:FOOT ever expect to end up at WP:Footnotes?