Help talk:Footnotes

Proposal to default references element to column mode

I have started a proposal to switch the default behaviour of <references /> to automatic column mode. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:20, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Quotation marks in <ref name="Name">

Hi. Could someone please let me know if this is the place, if not, where, to discuss changing the <ref name="Name"> to replace the quotation marks with something else (obviously resorting to the services of a bot to automate the process)? What I would like to address is the widespread use of quotation marks for emphasis. When you see a word in quotation marks for emphasis and want to correct it with either ''two single quotation marks'' [two single quotation marks] or with <em>this script</em> [this script] or {{em|this script}} [this script], as recommended, and decide to search for other occurrances of such use, you immedialtely see that the page is full of "quotation marks" used as part of the <ref name="Name"> script. Would it be possible to do away with the quotation marks in <ref name="Name">? Thank you for any guidance, regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 13:39, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

@Rui Gabriel Correia: The use of quotation marks to delimit the name is consistent with the attributes of HTML tags. Although <ref>...</ref> are not HTML tags, they look like them, and it was a conscious decision to make the syntax broadly similar. That said, as with HTML attributes, the quotation marks are optional except when certain conditions apply in which case they are mandatory. These conditions are described at WP:REFNAME and mainly concern the characters used to make up the name: for example, if it includes one or more spaces, there must be delimiting quotemarks. So <ref name=Name1>, <ref name="Name2">, <ref name="Name 3"> are all valid, but <ref name=Name 4> is not.

Changing the quotation marks to something else will not be done. Not only would it be a huge task (we're talking about millions of pages), but people would need to be educated to use the different character going forward: there would be resistance (for various reasons), there would be people who you had not informed, and so would continue to use the quotemarks. But before any of this could be done, you would need to get the MediaWiki software changed. That software is not just used by the English Wikipedia, but also by Wikipedia in all the other worldly languages, also the other projects like Wiktionary, Wikisource, Commons and so on. Getting MediaWiki changed means filing a change request through Phabricator. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:45, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Redrose64. Thank you for such an elucidanting, comprehensive, reply, at the same time clear and concise. I did anticipate that it would be a huge task, but thought nonetheless that it would be feasible, as I have become accustomed to seeing such sysyphean tasks entrusted to bots (removal of the list of languages in which a page is available, for example). So I guess this means educating editors to not use quotation marks for emphasis. Thanks for your time. Regards, Rui ''Gabriel'' Correia (talk) 13:47, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Template:NoteTag

@Redrose64: I was trying to convert articles which are using the note group for note purpose into using the template. It is not creating a new method, instead simply converting an existing usage from ref group into not template. It is also functionally different from Templalte:efn in the sense that the tip on Template:efn does not explicitly state in line that they are notes. C933103 (talk) 13:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

This template {{NoteTag}} is new to us – it has only just appeared. It has merit in that if you want your footnote markers to be shown as "Note 1", "Note 2" and so on – a very reasonable thing to do – then using {{NoteTag|...}} and then {{NoteFoot}} is somewhat less markup than doing {{refn|group=Note|...}} and then {{reflist|group=Note}}. The two templates should however be provided with proper documentation of their own. If documentation is supplied I would favour keeping them linked in the table under question: Noyster (talk), 16:32, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

There is no need for these new templates whatsoever. The existing templates {{efn}} and {{notelist}} do the job perfectly well; moreover, neither of them need a |group= parameter. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:32, 5 December 2017 (UTC)

However, neither templates provide a visual indications that they a tips for note... As for editing documentation to more dedicatedly reflecting their usage, I would do so if others think the template is worth keeping independently instead of being change to redirect C933103 (talk) 05:55, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

efn/notelist without a |group= can only display a single character or digit as the reference marker. We're saying if you want the markers to be "Note 1", "Note 2" and so on – making it clear to the reader that they are going to find some "Notes" further down – then NoteTag provides a handy way to do that. What's it costing us? Any other views?: Noyster (talk), 10:02, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

You only need the word "Note" to disambiguate the number, otherwise you would have two different and potentially unrelated , the other neing a true reference; moreover, that word "Note" only appears in the , it doesn't appear in the automatically-generated list later on. With {{efn}}, you get letters etc. and the automatically-generated list uses the same identifiers. The non-use of numbers also means that there is no risk of confusion between the two lists. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

If the user of these templates provides separate Footnote sections clearly headed "Notes" and "References", then the potential for confusion should be minimal. However, to address this objection more thoroughly, C933103, would you consider amending {{NoteFoot}} so that it will prefix each note with "Note 1", "Note 2" and so on, rather than the bare numbers?: Noyster (talk), 12:36, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

1. It can probably be doable as exampled by using css listed on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26025057/add-custom-text-to-ordered-list-li this page, but is it really desirable? As then you will have a "Notes" subheading in a page, numerous notes down below, and then all of these notes will precede with the word "Note" in front of it.C933103 (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)
2. The purpose of the word "note" is not just to disambiguate the number, instead it's trying to tell readers that there are relevant information that they can click on to view. This is something that simple number or other ordering characters cannot achieve.
3. Actually, is it more preferable to use or ?

C933103 (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Citation style

Am I the only troglodyte here? Footnoting is different in every Wiki article. 'Help:footnotes' is like reading the fine print from my bank: 16 pages and no clear suggestion of how to cite a normal article in a scientific journal. However, I do note on p. 13 a section on how to cite a book, strangely without the place of publication. I guess I learned it all wrong. Azd0815 (talk) 15:30, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

The easiest way to start learning is to copy an existing reference from a well-developed article. Find a long science article, like Bengal tiger, click Edit, and copy a full citation that references a scientific journal. Paste it into your article, change the citation information (authors, title, DOI, etc.), and then Preview your edit to see if it looks right. When you are happy with your edit, click Publish. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:36, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Azd0815 As we say in another of these lengthy guides: "Wikipedia does not have a single house style, though citations within any given article should follow a consistent style" as it is just not practicable to attempt to enforce a house style here. This section of the same guide has more suggestions about what information to include in a citation to a book, a journal and other types of source. I hope this will help: Noyster (talk), 16:49, 28 December 2017 (UTC)