Reference readability

References are essential to wikipedia articles: all content must be verifiable with reliable sources. This project seeks to make references more readable - so that people can easily verify they support the article and learn more about the rich information they contain. We also hope this will encourage editors to write higher quality references.

Reference List
There's a great gadget to view references in context in an article with Reference Tooltips, but most readers must click to scroll to the reference list to read one. The reference list is difficult to read - the text is small and close together, and the list is difficult to navigate.

Reference formatting
References have a strong history following academic standards. Editors are encouraged to use formatting styles and/or use citation templates, but they can still be difficult for readers to understand. There are many different styles, and the labels in templates are not visible to readers. For example, in the 2nd screenshot, what does the number "14" mean?

How we use references
People use references in many different ways. Here are a few personas and the things they might care about when looking at a reference. This list is a work in progress, please edit or add ways you use references yourself!

Verifier I want to verify this is a reliable source and supports the claim in the article

Formatter I want to make sure this reference was filled out properly

Linker I want to fix this broken link or replace with an updated reference

Student Would my school approve of this source? I want to cite this in MLA/another format that my school requires

Book lover Is this book interesting? Where can I read it?

Skeptic Is this a trusted source? I want to read all the information - for example date published, date retrieved (and maybe view web archive at that date), etc.

Proving a fact I want to quickly show this to a friend to prove a fact

Explorer This is cool, I want to learn more and keep clicking and seeing how this connects to other references or articles.

Proposals to improve usability

 * Utilize reference tooltips to show references in context, so that readers don't have to scroll to reference list
 * Display each reference in a "human readable" format - showing the most important information first, and providing labels for confusing fields (such as chapter and page number)
 * Allow readers to sort reference list by type (such as books, web, news, etc.)

Tooltip Designs
These mockup shows the same reference from the screenshot above. There is an icon indicating which type it is: journal. The title is bold, followed by the author and date. The user can then choose to click the link, open and view more information, or view in citation format.

Academic Citations
A user can view the reference in its academic formatting. It is already selected so they can easily copy and paste.

Broken Link
If a bot has marked the reference as a broken link, a user can click edit to go directly to fixing or replacing that reference.

"Reliable source"
Users may mark a reference as a "reliable source" and leave a comment on the reference. Users could for example recommend the book, talk about the website as useful for people learning about a topic, or say specifically how the reference supports the article. If another user disagrees that the reference is reliable, they can edit the reference to revert. Anyone may leave additional comments by editing.

Used on other pages
Reference indicates if it had been used on other pages. When a user clicks that indication, they can navigate to all other pages that use the reference. This helps explorers find more related articles, and could indicate that this is a good source.

Author/organization image
If the author or organization of a reference has a wikipedia article, the lead image could be shown in the reference, to help readers quickly recognize the source.

Wikisource
If the reference is available on Wikisource, the user can access it from the tooltip.

Find this book A user can use the find this book tool to search libraries or stores.

Icon Designs
Currently a reference is indicated within an article by a superscript number in brackets after a sentence. This is derived from print footnotes, and is useful to see how many references there are in an article. But with the navigation improvements we're proposing here, the number is not as necessary. Instead there could be a simple icon within the text to indicate a reference. If there are multiple references to support a passage, the number of references will be indicated.

List Designs
The reference list can be sorted by template type, most recent date, or by order in the article. The references are collapsed by default to show only titles, author/source, and date. A user can expand a reference in line to view more information.