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Topic on Help talk:Reference Previews

Try separate explain-notes and ref-notes

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Summary by Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE)
Gerald Waldo Luis (talkcontribs)

This is, as well, the common flaw on Wikipedia, is that explanatory footnotes and references notes are being combined. They are not the same. Please consider separate them.

About the design overall, I think it is great. I think it catches up with state-of-the-art, elegant designs, and makes Wikipedia cleaner and less boring. Send my appreciation to the designer!

Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

Thanks for the positive feedback, that's very much appreciated! However, what do you mean when you say "separate them"? One popup typically shows a single footnote only. What needs separation, where, and how?

Gerald Waldo Luis (talkcontribs)

I mean to let it able to distinguish between explanatory footnotes and references footnotes. So let's say there is an explanatory footnote, instead of marking it as 'References,' let it be marked as 'Footnote.' References are sources that supports the statement, so having an explanatory footnote marked 'References' is going to be confusing for non-Wikipedians.

Thiemo Kreuz (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

Ah, I see. So this is mostly about the heading that currently says "Reference", and possibly the "Jump to reference" link at the bottom. I would love to make these more context-sensitive. Unfortunately there is currently no way to distinguish explanatory footnotes from actual references. Do you have an example article?

Gerald Waldo Luis (talkcontribs)

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but consider the en:Interstellar (film) article. There are explanatory footnotes, but was titled 'References' when I hover on them.

Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talkcontribs)

@Gerald Waldo Luis Thanks for your feedback! Our team is currently adding a class which can be used to specify references as notes. When used, the pop-up title will then say "Note" instead of "Reference".

Best,

Johanna

Steven Sun (talkcontribs)
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