Extension talk:HarvardReferences

Proposed changes

I think you're definitely on to something good and useful here. I just have a couple of questions/suggestions: Wouldn't it be better, instead of using the <sup> tag, to use a <span> tag and then define the default superscript behavior in CSS within the default CSS template? This would allow different skins to display the references differently, or allow the behavior on printing to be different than the on-screen behavior. Also, to aid in this I think it might be wise to create a new CSS class more specific than "reference". COGDEN 22:05, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Style or links drawing may be changed in any time (it is not fundamentally), currently I've took it from Cite.php.X-romix 13:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not keen on the highlighting being done by JS. This can easily be done by CSS like cite.php. See en:Help:Cite messages for the styling used by cite.php. --Gadget850 22:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

There is highligting being done by JS, but there is highligting done by CSS TOO, please turn off JS in your browser to test it. Some features will be disabled, but basic features is still working! (my browser is FireFox). X-romix 13:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Name

This isn't quite Harvard referencing as it is used by popular style guides like The Chicago Manual of Style or APA style. In those systems, any information already given in the text is omitted from the reference. For example (using your notation but omitting redundant information):

The week has seven days.[Doggett 1992:577]

Doggett claims calendar reforms are extraordinary events. [1992:578]

In 1992, Seidenmann and Wilkins claimed GMT should not be used for precise purposes. [:7]

You can see that your system cannot be used exactly the same way as customary Harvard citations. Jc3s5h 22:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

[Doggett 1992:577] is Harvard reference? Partly realisation may be... X-romix 13:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Harvard is more properly referred to as en:Parenthetical referencing: "the in-text citation is placed in parentheses after the sentence or part thereof that the citation supports, and includes the author's name, year of publication, and a page number where appropriate (Smith 2008, p. 1) or (Smith 2008:1)"

So, the style is not properly Harvard, but that should be an easy fix. By default, it should display as proper parenthetical referencing. By putting the leading and trailing parentheses and the page field into MediaWiki messages and wrapping them in a class, editors can customize the display. --Gadget850 16:19, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Links [Smith 2008: p. 1] and [Smith 2008:1] is supported, and points to anchor [*Smith 2008]. Character "," is not a separator becouse may be some names e.g. [Smith, Wesson, Johnson 2008] in one reference... X-romix 12:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Questions

I presume there is some detection between external links in brackets and the bracket linked inline cites?

Is there error detection for inline cites without a matching defined reference or defined references without a matching inline cite?

Link [aaa] is not working (extension does not anything with it) if there is no anchor [*aaa] with exactly same name in bibliography. If there is links without anchor - it is not error situation - extension pass this as simple wiki-text and does not anything with it. X-romix 13:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Looking at your sample page, it is not obvious what the pulldown box at the end of the page does. If I select *, then all of the inline cites change to *; selecting - removes the inline cites. By default it shows enclyclo.co.uk, which I do not understand.

Ah- the * gives displays the cite tile as a hover.

It would be neater if this displayed in the sidebar and was more explanatory.

The pulldown prints— it needs to be wrapped in the noprint class, which may differ from one wiki to another. Cite.php gets around this by using MediaWiki messages for styling.

--Gadget850 22:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think that pulldown selector of links style can be moved into "Personal script" or "Gadget" (many users may prefer other style of links, and choose it as their own personal settings). This is only demonstration to users who do not like "big links" in a wiki-text. I think I'll remove it into separate JS. X-romix 13:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, Gadgets can only enable or disable. I you can get a pulldown selector into a Gadget, I will be very interested. The ability to customize will help make this more palatable. --Gadget850 16:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I've move "highlingting scripts" into separate file that not belongs to PHP-extension and is optional. See section below. X-romix 12:05, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I'v made a sandbox to test extension

• http://wikiext.org/index.php/Sandbox:Test_page - this is on my site. X-romix 13:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Scripts separated from extension

I've separate all JS-scripts from extension. This will allow to design optional view of references through use of personal scripts, Gadgets or common user scripts without modifying PHP. X-romix 11:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Can you use svn repository?

Input the code in extension page is not good for version control. so, can you use svn repository like http://svn.toolserver.org ,http://svn.wikimedia.org --by Devunt at 12:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks X-romix 13:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Happy-melon's remarks

[1] I'll try to fix it. X-romix 09:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Template usage Version 1.2/Version1.5

As in Version 1.2 it was possible without any big hassle to carry out tagging and convey the <HarvardReferences on="yes"/> command within a template at the end. This allowed any user just to use the template {{HRef|...|...}} without explicitly stating the <HarvardReferences on="yes"/> at the end of the article. But since '''Version 1.5''' this convince has gone since it is not possible any more because <nowiki><HarvardReferences>...</HarvardReferences> has to be stated outside the template and this is most inconvenient since the user has to remember to put those <HarvardReferences>...</HarvardReferences> with any article he/she uses. A user want to edit and not to remember particular commands to ensure functionality. I would appreciate any help in order to see that this extensions can be used as easy/convenient as possible with the user in mind (Using customized templates that does most of the work as in our case we let templates set the reference tags and create semantics to ensure that the user do not need to do extra effort).

Thanks --MWJames 16:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

This is not really different from the cite.php list-defined references where the defined references are in ‎<references>...‎</references> tags. At en.wiki, we have the {{Reflist }} template that supports list-defined references without having to deal with the tags. I am sure we will develop a similar template to enclose the ‎<HarvardReferences>...‎</HarvardReferences> so we can add formatting such as font size and columns. --71.62.65.227 15:58, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I rather would see a possibility for an option to activate the extension globally for the entire mediawiki system so no additional steps has to be taken care of per article such as to maintain any particular tags within articles. By having this option the system automatically interpret the [* ] notion otherwise every article has to be set with this tag parameter. --MWJames 04:36, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

May be, you are right. <HarvardReferences>...</HarvardReferences> now may be used as <HarvardReferences/> in any part of the article. X-romix 10:09, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

We just checked the usages in templates with <HarvardReferences/> which takes a lot of headaches and it looks good. Our testing was executed on a MediaWiki 1.16.0beta2 system. Thanks --MWJames 05:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Links are count twice

With the change to the official MW 1.16 release and the use of HarvardReferences (Version 1.6), reference links ^{1 2} are generated twice. For example if the text contains [Bond 2008]:293 and is referenced with [* Bond 2008] two links ^{1 2} are generated even though the citation is only mentioned once in the text. If the [Bond 2008]:293 is mentioned twice in the text then in bottom four ^{1 2 3 4} links are generated.It seems somehow the links are count twice.

Our system works with MediaWiki 1.16.0, PHP 5.2.13 (apache2handler), MySQL 5.1.44-community, Semantic MediaWiki (Version 1.5.3).--MWJames 13:04, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Improvements more in sync with common practice on Wikipedia.

On Wikipedia, editors have tended to prefer the format (Smith 2006, p. 3), rather than (Smith 2006:3). Also, editors have tended to prefer the "shortened foonote" (<ref>Smith 2006, p. 3</ref>) over a version using something akin to <sup>:3</sup>.

In my own opinion (which is partly motivated by a preference for simplicity and standardization), it would be better if this extension implemented these techniques. ---- CharlesGillingham 18:43, 16 November 2010 (UTC)