Forum:Separating Footnotes and References

Index → The Panopticon → Separating Footnotes and References

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Proposal

As someone who loves using <ref> and {{reflist}} on this wiki, I've long noticed that our current practice mixes together two distinct purposes:

1. footnotes, i.e. explanatory or clarifying comments; and
2. references, i.e. external links which serve as evidence for the claims, usually through {{cite web}}.

Mixing these two very different use cases results in confusion. As an example, see Faction Paradox (series)#Footnotes. Of the 68 "footnotes" on that page, 62 are source citations and 6 are explanatory comments. How quickly can you identify which is which? Spoiler: it's borderline impossible!

Other wikis have an established way to solve this problem: separating "Footnotes" and "References". As an example, see the #Notes and #References sections on Wikipedia's "Earth" page. Explanatory footnotes are listed in one section, and external links are listed in the other. This is achieved by using two parallel versions of <ref> and {{reflist}}.

Surprisingly, the tools for this already exist on our wiki as well: {{note}} and {{notelist}}! To see how these would look on Faction Paradox (series), see User:NateBumber/Sandbox/2. Isn't that much better? Besides clarity, there are several other advantages to using {{note}} in addition to <ref>:

• The pipe trick doesn't work in <ref> tags, which make them poorly suited for footnote-style commentary. {{note}} doesn't have this problem.
• You can use <ref> within a {{note}}! This is hugely helpful, for instance in Footnote 5 on the sandbox.
• There are many pages where our in-universe coverage would benefit from out-of-universe explanatory footnotes; Chubby Potato has suggested one case on Talk:Fifteenth Doctor, and Infinity Doctor is an awesome example of footnotes done right. But due to the <ref> muddle, we've been held back from using them to their full potential.

If we already have {{note}}, why haven't we been using it? Because the obvious names for the two sections are "Footnotes" and "References", and "References" was already being used on our story pages for a different purpose. However, as of Forum:References into Worldbuilding, that usage conflict no longer exists. The way forward is finally clear: all that's left is for us to take it! – n8 (☎) 18:51, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Yeah, this seems like a good thing to do to make the wiki more usable. I Support it. Time God Eon ☎ 19:27, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I agree with this, it's pretty much common sense. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Aquanafrahudy‎ (talk • contribs) .

Hmmm. How would we stylize this? Would we do it like in your sandbox, with nb X? While I'm acquainted, I don't think this is common parlance for most readers. Najawin ☎ 19:38, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

That's more or less how Wikipedia do it, isn't it? Or do they use letters? Aquanafrahudy 📢 19:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I believe they use "Note X". Najawin ☎ 20:18, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Ah, they use "a", "b", "c" etc, see [1] for a random example I found. Aquanafrahudy 📢 20:34, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Nate mentioned my recent reply at Talk:Fifteenth Doctor, so yeah, I am in strong support of this and have been for quite a while. [nb 1] (for nota bene) is the default by MediaWiki, but I believe it's pretty easy to change to [note 1] or alphabetically like [a]. Personally I think nb is fine, but note could work too. Alphabetical footnotes are best reserved for specific parts of a page, e.g. a table or list with its own footnotes directly under it. (It wouldn't be hard to make another template like this, I think.) Wikipedia is actually a bit inconsistent on what format they use, I think there is reason to it but I don't quite understand it. Chubby Potato ☎ 20:39, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I give this my full support. I'm impartial on whether we use "nb", "note" or letters. I would like to correct Chubby Potato slightly, though. "nb" is not the MediaWiki default and is defined explicitly in {{note}}. It's very easy to change. I'm not entirely sure off the top of my head how to do letters but that knowledge should only be one web search away. Bongo50 ☎ 20:46, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I like this idea as well, but we will need to rename the current References section on story articles first. LauraBatham ☎ 02:20, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Never mind. I now see that forum has been resolved and implemented. My bad. LauraBatham ☎ 02:24, 10 September 2023 (UTC)