Extension talk:HarvardReferences/Archive

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  tag, to use a   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)


 * 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)

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)

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?

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)