Current state
Actually used: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCrnberg#Einzelnachweise_und_Anmerkungen, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suizid#Fu.C3.9Fnoten, …
Some text.<ref group="Adam2001">Page 1</ref> More text.<ref group="Adam2001">Page 2</ref> == References == * Scott Adam: I wrote a Book. London, 2001. <references group="Adam2001" />
This is currently rendered as [Adam2001 1] and [Adam2001 2], and the references section as follows:
- Scott Adam: I wrote a Book. London, 2001.
- ↑ Page 1
- ↑ Page 2
Key issues
- No semantic connection between the full and refined references.
- Can not reuse the full book as a reference.
- Requires multiple <references group="…"> per book, which makes the references section hard to maintain.
- Long prefixed superscripts in the article text. Authors generally do not like these.
Otherwise it's quite close to what authors want, I was told during Wikimania.
Proposal
Some text.<ref refines="Adam2001">Page 1</ref> More text.<ref refines="Adam2001">Page 2</ref> == References == <references> <ref name="Adam2001">Scott Adam: I wrote a Book. London, 2001.</ref> </references>
This will be rendered as [1a] and [1b], and the references section as follows (the upper case A is a limitation of Phabricator, should be lower case):
- ↑ Scott Adam: I wrote a Book. London, 2001.
- ↑ Page 1
- ↑ Page 2
Advantages
- Main and refined references build a semantic group.
- Flexible to use. The full reference can also be up in the text. The order of the full and refined references does not matter.
- Does not interfere with existing attributes (group and name) and how they are used.
- Meaningful error messages and maintenance categories in all cases that break the semantic meaning. Mostly when refines="…" refers to a removed reference. Also when refines is used with group or name, which should both be disallowed.
Key issues
- How the superscripts ([1a] in my example) are rendered depends on the language and local project's consensus. Could also be [1.1], for example.
- The way the references section is rendered (with the refines being indented one level) is fixed, which is usually what's wanted. But this means the Harvard style on English and other Wikipedias with two sections, one for abbreviated references to pages and an other one for the full descriptions of the books used (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia#References), is not possible.