Citations on a separate subpage, and mechanisms to do it

[J. Noel Chiappa]

Just a warning for those who only read the thread title of the other thread: this thread is discussing i) having citations on a separate subpage, and ii) what mechanisms we can use to do that (since I don't think <ref> can be coerced into working across subpages - although I would love to find out that I'm wrong).

Noel

[Robert_W_King]

I don't think that's such a hot idea.  It's of great inconvenience to the user.  I'd just prefer if we had a collapsable reference area.

[Aleta Curry]

Well, first, thanks Noel for pointing out that the other thread has segued.  (I don't know if I spelt that right--looks weird.)  It seems to me that the issue on Hayford's thread was whether or not Topic Informant stuff, if I knew egg-zakly what that was, should go on another page.

With respect to citations, before I weigh in with a 'way to go' or 'no way, Jose', I have to point out that we don't even have this citation bizzo straight yet in the academic sense.  "notes" "quotes" "citations" "references" and so forth are left up to the individual author.

I was all a-muzzle, so I just call all my that type of stuff ==Notes and sources== or I think sometimes ==Notes and references== and use /references at the end of the piece and have done.

I for one wouldn't like having to flip the page...er...tab just to find out what the author had to say about [1].

My preference would be to just read a popup note in-line, and then scan down to the notes section if I had to.  What a colossal pain in the derrière to have to switch tabs to read a note.  Dreadful if it's a long article and you have to a) remember the note number, b) find the note on the note page c) come back to the same sentence you were in the same paragraph to keep reading, all the while d) waiting for the $%&*^!! downloads if you happen to be dealing with dial-up.  Yeah, I know, none of the rest of you have that woe.

[RJensen]

Aleta is right. Also scholars hate to have notes at the end of the book

[Nick Bagnall]

Well, first, thanks Noel for pointing out that the other thread has segued.  (I don't know if I spelt that right--looks weird.)  It seems to me that the issue on Hayford's thread was whether or not Topic Informant stuff, if I knew egg-zakly what that was, should go on another page.

With respect to citations, before I weigh in with a 'way to go' or 'no way, Jose', I have to point out that we don't even have this citation bizzo straight yet in the academic sense. "notes" "quotes" "citations" "references" and so forth are left up to the individual author.

I was all a-muzzle, so I just call all my that type of stuff ==Notes and sources== or I think sometimes ==Notes and references== and use /references at the end of the piece and have done.

I for one wouldn't like having to flip the page...er...tab just to find out what the author had to say about [1].

My preference would be to just read a popup note in-line, and then scan down to the notes section if I had to.  What a colossal pain in the derrière to have to switch tabs to read a note.  Dreadful if it's a long article and you have to a) remember the note number, b) find the note on the note page c) come back to the same sentence you were in the same paragraph to keep reading, all the while d) waiting for the $%&*^!! downloads if you happen to be dealing with dial-up.  Yeah, I know, none of the rest of you have that woe.

Yes, I've been wondering which is most appropriate -- I am really fond of standards! I think that using footnotes is preferable to the Harvard style given the medium -- checking up on a footnote is a mere click away on the Web! Likewise, returning to the spot you were reading requires just another click!

And I completely agree with your assessment of keeping notes on a separate page. It's horribly impractical.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

we don't even have this citation bizzo straight yet in the academic sense.  "notes" "quotes" "citations" "references" and so forth are left up to the individual author.

An excellent point. Hopefully we'd get all this worked out at the same time, and produce a system, including both i) underlying technology, and ii) guidelines on how we do it.

My preference would be to just read a popup note in-line

We can produce these things called "hovers" or "tooltips", where when you wave your mouse over them, you get a little pop-up window which shows you the contents. (See here for an example - put your mouse over the "N".) Is that what you were talking about?

and then scan down to the notes section if I had to.  What a colossal pain in the derrière to have to switch tabs to read a note.

I agree it's not optimal to have to switch subpages (but then I wonder about the whole suboages concept). Anyway, having notes at the bottom isn't that much better - you have to go down to see them, and then back up. Maybe the hovers would be better....

Dreadful if it's a long article and you have to a) remember the note number, b) find the note on the note page c) come back to the same sentence you were in the same paragraph to keep reading

Um, no - they are all hyper-linked together, so all you have to do is click on them (in both directions); the "back" button on your browser should work too. The numbers are just for 'show' (and, in fact, as I mentioned on the other thread - blast, why did we topic evolve the other thread, now we're going in two places at once - the {{ref}} hyperlinks work even if the numbers get out of skew).

all the while d) waiting for the $%&*^!! downloads if you happen to be dealing with dial-up.

Definitely an issue with sub-pages.

Yeah, I know, none of the rest of you have that woe.

Not any more, no, but I did use one for many many years. And some of my computers are still old and slow. So I'm very sensitive to the point you make (a lot more so than some commercial web site designers, who seem to think that everyone has a Gig Ether connection to the latest dual-processor machine), which is an excellent one, and one we should all always keep in mind.

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

I'd just prefer if we had a collapsable reference area.

Now, that's an interesting idea. If I can figure out how Chris Day did the collapsible "unused subpages" thing on the Talk: page, we might be able to do a template that wraps the "<references/> in something similar, so the footnotes can be hidden. Or perhaps not - the whole <ref>/<references/> system turns out to be rather inflexible, alas.

Noel

[J. Noel Chiappa]

Actually, if the footnotes have an abbreviated style reference in them, it would seem better to have them at the foot of the page. Then the full reference could be on a subpage, called SOURCES

Well, in the "Sources" section of the Bibliography subpage, or something like that.

We would probably whip up something that hyperlinked the two entries together (see this for an example), so you wouldn't have to manually search for the full listing.

Noel

[Derek Harkness]

For inline referencing, I think it has to link to the bottom of the page so that you can jump back and forth quickly. We also need to consider that some subpages will need their own reference sections. I have done several catalogs that have their own references at the foot of the catalog that is independent form the references for the main article. If you put everything into the one page it could become a bit of a muddle.

[Robert_W_King]

For inline referencing, I think it has to link to the bottom of the page so that you can jump back and forth quickly.

I think this idea, combined with a collapsable "References" area would be probably the best solution.  Somehow we could adjust the way "<ref>" works to include an html anchor tag to return to that part of the page.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

We also need to consider that some subpages will need their own reference sections. I have done several catalogs that have their own references at the foot of the catalog that is independent form the references for the main article. If you put everything into the one page it could become a bit of a muddle.

Good point.

I think this idea, combined with a collapsable "References" area would be probably the best solution.  Somehow we could adjust the way "<ref>" works to include an html anchor tag to return to that part of the page.

Um, <ref> already provides hyperlinks back-n-forth between the footnote tag (is there a correct/better name for that  "¹"?) and the footnote body (ditto).

I'll look into seeing if a collapsible footnote body area is possible (technically); from my reading and prior experimentation (see the other thread), <ref> and friends aren't very flexible.


Also, a terminology suggestion: I would like to have standardized terminology so we don't misunderstand each other.

What the "<ref>" system actually provides are not "references" (as I understand the term), but "footnotes" (AIUTT). You can put anything in there, including just a chunk of plain text. So I'd like to divide "footnotes" into "text footnotes" and "source footnotes" (i.e. ones which provide a reference to the source).

I would also like to have a term for the full citation of the source (e.g. "Luser, J. Random; How to really confuse our readers, CZ Forum, 30-Feb-2929"). Suggestions?

Noel

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

We should follow standard academic procedure insofar as it suits CZ.

We could call the two types of footnote (actually, they are really endnotes) "text" and "reference". The reference footnotes should link to "Source bibliography", as distinct from a general bibliography, on the subpage Bibliography.

How does this sound?

[RJensen]

Scholars love the footnotes. I'm one who always looks there first (in order to see where the author comes from), So don't hide them or downplay them.

[J. Noel Chiappa]

combined with a collapsable "References" area

OK, I have something working for you to play with. Replace the <references />, etc with just the single line:

{{Hidden Footnotes}}

which will produce initially hidden footnotes with a hide/show button on the right-hand side (there is a "Footnotes" header there so you know what's there).

The most important bug is that when the list of footnotes is hidden, the hyperlinks in the footnote tags (which link to the footnote bodies) don't work. There's not much I can do about that without editing the CZ style sheets (CSS) which have the JavaScript to implement the show/hide function, I suspect - and even then I might not be able to fix it.

I have adapted some existing stuff to do this, so if you don't like the look, again there's not much I can do without editing the CSS. I tried to suppress the edit button on the header, but again, apparently I can't do easily (I've tried a number of things, still working on it - which is why the header is in the template).

Noel

[Nick Bagnall]

Hm, is there ever a chance of adopting a universal citation method at CZ? As I said, the medium benefits from some kind of approach using linked footnotes; I think the Chicago Manual of Style's simultaneous use of a bibliography and notes (one of two of their preferred methods) is best.