Any chance we could participate in the "ref extends" MediaWiki Beta?

+6 votes
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See "Citing different parts of the same source" in "Help:Cite."

Article reports, "This feature doesn't yet work on wikis outside the beta cluster, which is why the above example is a mock. You can follow the project update at ..."

The effect of this beta coding allows one to create inline citations to specific parts of a referenced source. So, one reference note might be to page 15, and another might be to page 720. We could also then include specific source of the source notes in those extended references.  

This seems like a feature many WikiTreers would be game to incorporate. --Gene

in WikiTree Tech by GeneJ X G2G6 Pilot (117k points)
retagged by Ellen Smith
Wikitree runs an ancient and heavily modified version of Mediawiki. Don't expect any new Mediawiki features to be backported into Wikitree.

1 Answer

+10 votes
 
Best answer

Nice idea in principle, Gene. But it's no go because even beyond Leif's point, MediaWiki itself has cancelled the "ref extends" beta proposal. See this link.

by Jim Richardson G2G6 Pilot (995k points)
selected by GeneJ X
Thanks.

So much for that.

We need something to replace it. I see that even Chicago Manual of Style is doing away with Ibid.
Indeed. A standard replacement for ibid or op. cit. on WikiTree would be a real boon. (Thank you for the star!)
In other referencing styles, the approach to cite a different page in a second or subsequent citation of the same work is to use just the -

'author's surname, part of the title (enough that it is recognisable as the same work), page number.'

I've always found that a problem if it's in a book or long journal article, because you have to flick back to find where the source is first mentioned, and even in online works that have 100s of citations but for WikiTree it's probably workable.
Hi John, You have always been so thoughtful.

The long note/short note approach works well for static pages/publication data, but we "hope" there will be on-going collaboration from a multitude of users. Any one of these contributors might unknowingly remove or restate a "long note," and then it's gone. Poof.

And, if someone opts to consolidate notes/short notes, there is a pretty good chance we'll lose any notice of the important underlying historical records relied upon by authors of otherwise secondary sources (ala, proper record of the source of the source).

I realize my comments would be more helpful if I could point to specific examples. Perhaps with time, I'll be able to add that kind of detail here.

Thanks again for all you have done in support of WikiTree.--Gene

A while back, I found one solution documented in a free-space page about a book that is a frequent source: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Chronicles_of_the_Scotch-Irish_Settlement_in_Virginia#WikiTree_Syntax

Basically, a source is added, prefixed by <span id=xxx></span>. That creates an anchor. An inline citation of the form <ref>[[#xxx|author name]]. page 123.</ref> would then produce a citation that looks like author name. page 123, where the author name is a link to the full citation.

I recently found a list of acceptable html tags and <span> is not in it though, so I'm more wary of using that idea.

Randy, nice idea in theory, but you're right that <span> is not on the list of recommended HTML tags.

Further, <span> has explicitly been forbidden. See this answer from Jamie Nelson from September 2021.

It is possible to link to subheadings (created with = signs) using the notation [[#subheading|anchor]] you mention, but it can be tricky to get right.

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