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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by FrancisTyers (talk | contribs) at 08:11, 30 May 2006 (→References at bottom). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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References/Citations/Footnotes - and a 'while you're reading' idea

I really like this system, but the results at the bottom of a well-referenced (and noted) article is a mess. Intermixed references/citations/Footnotes are not really benificial for 'quick' comprehension that should be the web... there must be some way of splitting this same system between different uses. And if you applied the same code between <ref> <foot> and <cite> tags? (and why not <web> while you're at it?) This would be the simplest way of providing users of this system a few more sorting options - and a cleaner pagebottom!

Also, how about a little addition to end this very 'paper-esque' habit of having to flip to the page bottom to see references? Since the tag content is already extracted during the php page assembly, why not add an extra line to insert it into the 'reference number's "title" tag? (As in [<a href="#anchor_five" alt="whatever" title="reference_from_tag_here">4</a>]) - this would make the reference appear while the mouse is over the wee inline reference number that remains small enough to be unobtrusive. Thus, if the reader wants that reference desperately enough he can click down to it, but if not he can continue reading uninterrupted. The wee floating tag may be a bit small (long) to contain all reference text in some cases, but on the other hand I wouldn't suggest using the very obtrusive 'floating div' system. But to each his own tastes. Just my two cents.

--THEPROMENADER 07:25, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No space between period and ref

Per the most recent edit, I agree that putting a space between a period (or other punctuation) and the following <ref> tag looks bad. At the least, we should not recommend doing so; I'd actually rather specifically advice against it. LotLE×talk 07:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is also that such a space makes the footnote wrap to the next line. To avoid that we would have to use &nbsp; instead of a simple space char. I don't think this is worth the trouble. See also my testpage at User:Ligulem/work/fn1. --Ligulem 09:05, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't make it wrap to the next line for me. Perhaps it depends on the browser. If we didn't have the square brackets, it wouldn't look so bad without a space, but with the brackets, it's very crowded. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:12, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It wraps to the next line in Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer 6.0 (both running on Windows XP Pro, patched with all SP's and security fixes). Which browser does not wrap to next line? --Ligulem 09:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm using Firefox on a Mac. SlimVirgin (talk) 09:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that when editing, it looks very messy to have the whole thing running together on one line. This is yet another case of suitability for readers clashing with suitability of editors. :( Johnleemk | Talk 09:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. It looks messy in edit window. That's really bad. HTML comments could help, but they are a pain to use also. Sigh. --Ligulem 09:33, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed that we could insert a space between "<ref" and the closing ">" (example [1]). This would make the text flow to the next line in the edit window only. --Ligulem 09:42, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's generally hard to edit with these refs inserted, particularly when there are several in one paragraph. Is there any way of making the words inside the ref tags look different in edit mode from the rest of the text? SlimVirgin (talk) 09:45, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not to my knowledge. But that would be cool. With an external editor, that would not be too hard to program. Maybe there is even one out there that could be configured to do so. There are a lot of editors for programmers that can do syntax highlighting (html for example). The edit window is generally a real pain to use for larger text anyway (it also laks some important editor capabilites like a decent undo/redo). The inline refs are making that even worser. --Ligulem 09:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder how we could find out whether it's possible. I love these refs but they make copy editing really hard. I'm pasting an example below: if you look at it in edit mode, it's practically impossible to see where one sentence ends and the next begins. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Some legal scholars have argued that the settlements are legal under international law, [1] including prominent international law expert [2] [3] Julius Stone [4] and Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School, Under Secretary for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and one of the dafters of UN Security Council Resolution 242. [5] According to Rostow "the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there." [6]

In reply to SlimVirgin: I fully agree with you. Editing this kind of stuff is awful. The edit window is technically too limited to help out here (and my programmer knoweldge hints to me that this won't change anytime soon). The only thing that comes to mind is that we could add some spaces/newlines or html comment. For example this would be ok (at least wiki-technically, see wiki source in edit mode):

Some legal scholars have argued that the settlements are legal under international law, [7] including prominent international law expert [8] [9] Julius Stone [10] and Eugene Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School, Under Secretary for Political Affairs under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and one of the dafters of UN Security Council Resolution 242. [11] According to Rostow "the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the local population to live there." [12]

Of course, reading this kind of wiki-source is still awful, but the referencing content is somewhat set separate. --Ligulem 11:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's a bit better, thank you. I'll give it a try. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edit window formatting and wrapping

I think a couple things might be unclear in the above discussion. If a space is left between a period and a <ref> tag, the note will not automatically wrap to the next line (in either edit window or as rendered). It's just that it has the opportunity to do so. Exactly when that happens depends on browser, font used, size of screen, size of browser window, etc. You can definitely force the effect by playing with the sizing of your browser window, in pretty much any browser (other than 'lynx', I suppose). But it's not something as simple as IE vs. Firefox.

For example, by selectively resizing my window, I got SlimVirgin's example to render like: 

Some legal scholars have argued that the settlements are legal under international law, 
[13] including prominent international law expert [14] [15] Julius Stone [16] and Eugene 
Rostow, Dean of Yale Law School, Under Secretary for Political Affairs under...

Which is definitely not good (it was a bit smaller than I happen to size normally, but not anything extreme; I did, obviously nudge it until it did just the wrong thing I wanted to demonstrate... but this will happen with a certain frequency at any browser size and enough notes).

In any case, I find that a space between the period and the ref looks absolutely awful even when the note doesn't wrap to the next line... and even worse when it does, of course. So I'd really like the guideline to explicitly say not to do that. There are several approaches to improving readability in the edit window, while not leaving a space. Let me mention a couple: 

This is main text.<ref >A footnote for the text.</ref>.  And some more text.

By putting a space in <ref >, the footnote may wrap to the next line in the edit window, but won't leave extra space as rendered. If a reference has a name, it achieves a similar effect: 

This is main text.<ref name="foo137">A footnote for the text.</ref>.  And some more text.

This lets the edit window wrap before 'name' if it needs to. Adding XML comments also lets you force layout without affecting rendering: 

This is main text.<!--
--><ref name="foo137">A footnote for the text.</ref>.  <!--
-->And some more text.

However, I find that the use of citation templates, apart from their basic advantages, also lets you be more presentable with the layout of inlined references. Here's an example I gave in a discussion on my talk page: 

In the first few months after the attacks, most representatives from these professions 
who gave statements to media outlets lauded the "performance" of the Twin Towers, 
suggesting that loss of life could have been far worse if design and construction 
of the buildings had been of lesser quality. Radical design decisions made by the 
WTC team were compared to more time-tested [[skyscraper]] designs. A report entitled 
"World Trade Center Building Performance Study"<ref>{{cite book
 | editor=Therese McAllister
 | date=May
 | year=2002
 | title=World Trade Center Building Performance Study
 | publisher=[[Federal Emergency Management Agency|FEMA]]/[[American Society of Civil Engineers|ASCE]]
 | volume=report 403 
 | url=http://www.fema.gov/library/wtcstudy.shtm www.fema.gov
}}</ref> issued by the [[Federal Emergency Management Agency]] (FEMA) in May 2002, 
pronounced the WTC design fundamentally safe and attributed the collapse wholly to 
extraordinary factors beyond the control of the builders.

I think that gives pretty good visual separation of the note, albeit occupying a bit of space in the edit window. LotLE×talk 19:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice description. Thanks LotLE. I just would like to add that (for those who like it, no intention to urge anybody to do so) you can add spaces and newlines between "{{" and "cite book" (the name of the template). To the wrapping thing: it can happen also in between multi-footnotes[13] [14] (← like these) if they are separated by normal spaces. If you want to avoid that, &nbsp; must be used instead of a plain space char. --Ligulem 21:37, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can someone explain the point of these citation templates? They seem to create extra work for no benefit that I've ever seen. I'm afraid I didn't get the point of Lulu's examples. The first one he said looked bad, for example, looked fine to me. I think we should do what most publishing houses do, regarding whether to leave a space before ref or not, but I'm looking through my bookshelves here, and it isn't obvious whether there's a space or not. If we could get rid of the square brackets, that would help a lot. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:43, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On looking bad: I suppose one part is just an aethetic thing I can't convince you of. Looking at the "Some legal scholars..." quote above, I find "...law expert [14] [15] Julius Stone ..." really jarring to look at with the spaces scattered among the text and notes. But if you don't, you don't. However, look at note "[13]" in the same sample. In that, the note is on an entirely different line than the clause it supports, which is bad beyond mere aesthetics: it's directly disruptive of reading flow. LotLE×talk 22:21, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no need to use those citation templates. Some like them, some not. They do have pros and cons. --Ligulem 21:58, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is a somewhat separate issue from footnotes, but I see two main advantages to citation templates:
  1. Consistency of reference format across articles. We can change, site-wide, the style guide used for everything that uses, e.g., a "cite book" template. No doubt, any concrete change might raise disagreement; but think also of republishers of WP content. Presumably someone assembling all the WP articles on, say, Geology, into a printed book or CD version (think developing world) might want all the citations to match Chicago Manual of Style. With templates, that's doable, without them it's effectively undoable.
  2. Future tool enhancements. This doesn't exist now, so it's somewhat speculative; but not improbable (i.e. I could program it later). If you wanted to know every article that refererenced "A book written by Charles Dickens", or a "A magazine article published in The New Yorker", you'd have a pretty darn hard time extracting that from unstructured textual references. However, some super-duper future tool can much more easily extract such information from the structured format of citation templates. Such a tool might be something like an enhanced "what links here", or it might be some sort of indexing or citation analysis tool (or something I haven't thought of).
In my mind, citation templates are a really good thing. If nothing else, they help remind editors of desired data fields in references. But YMMV. LotLE×talk 22:13, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple sources cited for one fact - stylistic question

This came up on the (predictably contentious) Hamas page. I may not be exactly right in my account of what happened there, but that's not really the issue. It was something along these lines: some editors wanted to state that Hamas was "best-known" outside Palestine for suicide bombings, and provided five citations supporting that - a reasonable procedure given the controversial and quantitative nature of the contention, which was somewhat diluted in later edits. If I recall correctly, other editors on the talk page remarked that this was "too many citations", and removed some or all of them.

Now clearly, having multiple footnote indicators coming together is unnecessary and ugly, but removing valid citations is not the way of dealing with it.

I would propose that this article recommend, where one fact or contention is being referenced, that all sources being cited for it be combined into one footnote. This is normal procedure in published texts, where I don't recall ever seeing something like this.[15][16][17] (That is the result of typing: <ref>Smith, 2005, p. 5</ref><ref>Lammens, 1898, p. 75</ref><ref>Tishrin, 26 August 2004</ref> .) This alternative[18] which results from typing this: <ref>Smith, 2005, p. 5; Lammens, 1898, p. 75; Tishrin, 26 August 2004</ref>, also looks a good deal better. Any comments? Palmiro | Talk 12:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I've always done for multiple citations, for what it's worth. A problem that comes up is the case where one or more of these is a backlink to a previous footnote (<ref name="Foo"/> rather than <ref>Foo, 57.</ref>), which obviously won't work as expected when combined. This is avoided in cases where article editors use a new footnote for each citation—common where reasonably thick books are being cited—but is going to be a problem in articles that have a significant number of backlinks (which tends to happen when heavily citing websites or newspaper articles). Kirill Lokshin 12:23, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
True, though of course this problem could be avoided were we to wean editors off websites and newspaper articles and predominantly on to reasonably thick books, and think of the other benefits ;) Palmiro | Talk 12:29, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That'll never happen. Most people willing to use book sources already do, and convincing or persuading others who are more comfortable with citing their newspaper or reputable websites to dig up books to cite instead will be hard. (I'm sure there's something at WP:RAUL about this.) Johnleemk | Talk 17:07, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I propose adding trhe following:
Where possible, combine all citations for one fact or contention into one footnote, rather than adding multiple footnotes to the same place in the text.
Any comments, ideas, or suggestions for better ways of phrasing/explaining this? Palmiro | Talk 12:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine to me. Kirill Lokshin 12:56, 18 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help:How to use Cite.php references up for deletion at MfD

Just informing, the vote is going on at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Help:How to use Cite.php references. See also above at #Proposed "How to use Cite.php" section for beginners --Francis Schonken 19:20, 17 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments inside ref tags

I found recently that addition of <!-- and --> delimited comments inside the <ref> and </ref> tags results in an odd error.

User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 16:09, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Example outside

Example inside

References section

  1. ^ FAQ on Israeli settlements, CBC News Online, February 26, 2004. URL accessed April 10, 2006.
  2. ^ Pomerance, Michla. The Legality of the Iraq War: Beyond legal pacifism, The Review, April 2003. URL accessed April 11, 2006.
  3. ^ International Law: Blaming Big Brother: Holding States Accountable for the Devastation of Terrorism, 56 Oklahoma Law Review 735, __ __.
  4. ^ Lacey, Ian, ed. International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (pdf) - Extracts from Israel and Palestine - Assault on the Law of Nations by Julius Stone, Second Edition with additional material and commentary updated to 2003, AIJAC website. URL accessed April 10, 2006.
  5. ^ Rostow, Eugene. "Resolved: are the settlements legal? Israeli West Bank policies", The New Republic, October 21, 1991.
  6. ^ American Journal of International Law, 1990, volume 84, page 72.
  7. ^ FAQ on Israeli settlements, CBC News Online, February 26, 2004. URL accessed April 10, 2006.
  8. ^ Pomerance, Michla. The Legality of the Iraq War: Beyond legal pacifism, The Review, April 2003. URL accessed April 11, 2006.
  9. ^ International Law: Blaming Big Brother: Holding States Accountable for the Devastation of Terrorism, 56 Oklahoma Law Review 735, __ __.
  10. ^ Lacey, Ian, ed. International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (pdf) - Extracts from Israel and Palestine - Assault on the Law of Nations by Julius Stone, Second Edition with additional material and commentary updated to 2003, AIJAC website. URL accessed April 10, 2006.
  11. ^ Rostow, Eugene. "Resolved: are the settlements legal? Israeli West Bank policies", The New Republic, October 21, 1991.
  12. ^ American Journal of International Law, 1990, volume 84, page 72.
  13. ^ foo
  14. ^ bar
  15. ^ Smith, 2005, p. 5
  16. ^ Lammens, 1898, p. 75
  17. ^ Tishrin, 26 August 2004
  18. ^ Smith, 2005, p. 5; Lammens, 1898, p. 75; Tishrin, 26 August 2004
  19. ^ this is the note, comment following ref tags
  20. ^ this is the second note, comment preceding ref tags
  21. ^ this is the third note, comment inside ref tags UNIQ7bf7efd032badee7-HTMLCommentStrip46e80ae4ee2b95900000003
I've known about this problem for quite some time now, so I think the developers should know about it as well. You could always check the known issues section of m:Cite... Johnleemk | Talk 14:28, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Size: some questions by Encephalon

(questions copied from user talk:Francis Schonken:)

  • Some editors have taken to throwing a <div class='references-small'>...</div> around the reference tag. Is this a 1.) suitable solution, 2.) recommended solution, and 3.) can </references> just default to that class somehow? —Rob (talk) 18:50, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Period/Full Stop and reference location

Why does the reference have to come after the period? I think this is a foolish way of doing things. In comparison, the Harvard referencing system and other style guides allow for the reference to come within the sentence. I'm not saying it should be changed the other way, but the policy should allow for both. --Robdurbar 08:28, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it was meant that if the footnote refers to the whole sentence, then it should be placed after the period, not before it. Of course, you can place footnotes in the middle of the sentence. Why not? This is a needed feature. --Ligulem 09:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Rob, the footnote should be placed directly after the point it's being used as a reference for. For quotations, it should be directly after the quote, even if the quote is in the middle of a sentence. If you have three points in a sentence, and only the first point is sourced to that particular reference, the footnote should come after that point, but if the footnote is for the whole sentence, it should be placed at the end, after the punctuation. Footnotes come after punctuation, unlike Harvard references which are usually placed before punctuation (like this: Smith 2006). SlimVirgin (talk)

User:Ligulem; thank you, but I wasn't very clear - I meant where it refers to the whole sentence, I understand the mid-sentence feature. So is this footnote after the period a standard and not just a Wikipedia thing? I always use Harvard when referencing outside of Wikipedia and it seems odd to do it out of the sentence. Could the policy be changed to suggest that they come after the period, rather than to prohibit their use before the period? It seems like an unecessary little rule. --Robdurbar 11:34, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I believe all publishers place footnotes after punctuation, and Harvard referencing before it. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:39, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My personal opinion is that it is good as it is stated (footnotes after the punctuation). No clue how and where that came from. The Chicago Manual of Style (which uses non-bracketed numbers), 14th ed. 1993, writes in clause 15.8 (p. 494) "Note reference numbers. The superior numerals used for note reference numbers in the text should follow any punctuation marks except the dash, which they precede. The numbers should also be placed outside closing parantheses." So as we do it here is in line with that. --Ligulem 12:02, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It probably just came from the fact that it looks odd to have a sentence, then a number, then a dot, like this [1]. I suppose the syntactical argument is that the number is not part of the sentence. SlimVirgin (talk) 12:15, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I've presented the reason even on this talk page: basically, books and magazines are published using high resolution typography that doesn't exist in web browsers. Microspacing, ligatures, 1200 dpi printing, etc. make for different optima than do 72 dpi screen displays with relatively crude font rendering. Given the latter way that a majority of readers will read WP articles, certain things are good compromises for WP that wouldn't be necessary in print. On the web, lacking good quality superscripts and microspacing, it definitely looks a lot better to put footnotes after periods, or anything in superscript (which is why I personally dont' really like the template:ref_harv modification of template:ref_harvard all that much). LotLE×talk 16:52, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The links don't work, Lulu. My mind is boggling at templates for Harvard references involving periods/full stops. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:03, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I abbreviated when I wasn't supposed to. LotLE×talk 18:49, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Footnotes in double columns

To my mind, footnotes in double columns looks better to the eye, and make better use of space. I've taken the liberty of demonstrating this in the double layers article, though you require Firefox. Comments? --Iantresman 19:06, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks pretty good with the browser window expanded, but the columns are just a bit narrow in my normal browsing width of about 850px. Font-size:95% doesn't seem to perceptibly reduce the size in my browser; I think it would look better if it was still smaller. It may also benefit from tighter leading overall, or a bit of line space between list items.
Is it possible for it to switch to one column when the parent element is narrower than a certain width, without resorting to Javascript? —Michael Z. 2006-05-23 19:26 Z
Too bad the citations start with the floating carat character and the floating a and b's. The left margin of the list would be emphasized much better if each simply started with the capital letter at the beginning of the entry. —Michael Z. 2006-05-23 23:47 Z
Have a look at Double layers/temp, for an example with the back-links moved to the end of the line, and an added 1/2-line of space below each entry. It's much easier to read. —Michael Z. 2006-05-24 00:16 Z
Pretty neat hack. It may be too complicated for most editors, even though it looks like all you've done is add <div style="font-size:87.5%; -moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">. I'm sorry that your previous comment about back-links (more commonly link-back) was ignored. Maybe people will respond with reasons why the way it is.
FYI, "Notes" instead of "Footnotes" is a more standard heading. I try not to change existing ones, though, as it breaks links.
For your temp example, I'm assuming you've manually edited the layout to move the back-links and add extra space. Could you document the process on the /temp talk page? It may be good to centralize the discussion there. You may want to check these links for help, as well. --J. J. 13:51, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

References at bottom

Is there any success in solving this problem yet? I believe LotLE had a patch, did it work? - FrancisTyers 10:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Which problem are you referring to? Section ordering? If so, see Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Standard_appendices. --J. J. 13:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, e.g. 

<ref name="foo">

==References==
<references>
<ref name="foo">this is a reference</ref>
</references>

Basically having the spellout of the reference at the bottom of the page. - FrancisTyers 13:08, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See various discussion in Wikipedia talk:Footnotes/archive3 and m:Talk:Cite/Cite.php. LotLE patch here. - FrancisTyers 13:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another option would be to separate footnotes from references/bibliographic entries. Having footnotes inlined is not such a bad thing, but having references inlined definately is. - FrancisTyers 23:53, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried:
foo foo foo<ref name="foo" />
goo goo goo<ref name="goo">this is a goo reference</ref>

== References ==
<ref name="foo">this is a foo reference</ref>
<references />
Would that work for you? The only disadvantage is that it repeats the indexing number right above the ref-texts.  NikoSilver  (T) @ (C) 22:47, 29 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You could try HTML comments, though that would be completely manual and for organizational convenience only. Armedblowfish 02:35, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another option would be using templates, but I can't see many people going for that :/ - FrancisTyers 08:11, 30 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Every sentence should have a reference?

After reading in the guideline that Citations should always follow punctuation and the thread above (Period/Full Stop and reference location) it seems that a reference can't be attached to a paragraph (or series of paragraphs).

Does this mean that since (apart from the introduction) every sentence I write is sourced from a reference, every sentence needs a reference?

An example of my problem (abridged from Seikan Tunnel):

The area is folded into a nearly vertical anticline. It consists of volcanic rock[8].

The first sentence is unsourced (I will find a reference soon I hope). The reference shown, [8], only applies to the second sentence. I now fear that someone will move the [8] after the full stop and it will look like it applied to the first sentence too.

The solution seems to be that every sentence gets a reference, I don't mind doing that but haven't seen it done before. What to do?--Commander Keane 06:36, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A footnote comes always after the punctuation. This is just a matter of style. The position of the footnote after the period does not imply that it refers to the first sentence too. The idea that every sentence should have a footnote is very bad. Don't do this. --Ligulem 09:28, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So really we have no way to tell where the footnote applies, we just guess? --Commander Keane 10:56, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if you doubted the statement, you'd be checking the cited source itself, wouldn't you? It should be fairly easy to determine what it applies to then. Kirill Lokshin 13:21, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If the first sentence is actually unsourced—rather than merely not being footnoted—you can just add {{citation needed}} to it, and that will make clear that the later footnote doesn't apply to it. Kirill Lokshin 13:21, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I can see my problem. I was really aiming for 1:1 brilliant sourcing, but wasn't actually providing a decent level of accuracy (eg, Kitamura, p7, paragraph 18) in the references themselves so the whole thing is pointless. I will settle for the current way (seen in featured articles etc). Thanks for your thoughts.--Commander Keane 13:42, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is rather ambiguous, but when I write articles, I include citations such that everything between citations one and two comes from the reference marked by citation two. That rule, of course, doesn't work when citations are added to an article after it was written. --Spangineer[es] (háblame) 14:48, 28 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ abc
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