This is an
essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been
thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
This page in a nutshell: Reference data should be maintained in a centralized database akin to Wikimedia Commons for images |
There have been critiques of the accuracy of Wikipedia, and whether Wikipedia is progressing in a direction which will cause a greater fraction of articles to be highly accurate and well-written.
[1] The current system of
citing references does not lend itself to both goals. In addition, it is not amenable to many useful process changes:
Today, software mechanisms exist on Wikipedia which allow creating a "references list" or "notes list". By using a combination of <ref> and <references/> tags, a numbered (and optionally named) list of "notes" is created and incorporated into an article. By the use of the {{cite}} template, standardized bibliographic formatting is provided. For example:
PIR-based thermometers exist.<ref name="PIR_Thermometer_Tsai_2003">{{cite journal|title=Pyroelectric infrared sensor-based thermometer for monitoring indoor objects|author=C. F. Tsai and M. S. Young|journal=Review of Scientific Instruments|volume=74|issue=12|page=5267-5273|date=Dec 2003|url=http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=RSINAK000074000012005267000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes|doi=10.1063/1.1626005}}</ref>
===Notes===
</references>
will render something like the following example:
Notes
- ^ C. F. Tsai and M. S. Young (Dec 2003). " Pyroelectric infrared sensor-based thermometer for monitoring indoor objects". Review of Scientific Instruments 74 (12).
Create a special page where named references are created and maintained:
(Imagine one additional data-entry field to provide the reference name once saved, or the name could be assigned.)
PIR-based thermometers exist.<ref name="PIR_Thermometer_Tsai_2003"/>