Difference between revisions of "Conservapedia:Footnotes - technical help"

Revision as of 19:31, June 16, 2008

Conservapedia allows editors to place footnotes (usually to cite sources) in articles. Within a text, a footnote will appear like this: ^[1]

Clicking such a link takes the reader to the References section (usually located at the bottom of the article).

Basics

Creating footnotes

When editing an article, footnotes are created with the help of the reference ("ref") tag:

Article text.<ref>Footnote text</ref> More article text.

In the article, the above would look like this:

Article text.^[1] More article text.

Usually, the footnote text will be a web address (such as http://www.bouldercolorado.gov/index.php ) or the title of a book/article (with the relevant page and other information)

Creating the References section

If it was not already added during a previous edit, please add a References section at the bottom of an article. All references will show up there once you do so. Adding a References section is a simple two-liner:

==References==
<small><references/></small>

If you are editing a section of an article, the footnotes themselves will not show on the preview. To preview the footnotes add <references /> to the bottom of the section, but remember to delete it before submitting your changes.

Advanced Usage

Using a footnote more than once

If you need to cite the same source more than once in an article, you can of course create a standard footnote each time. However, it saves space and work to use reference names:

Article text.<ref name="MyFirstRef">Footnote text</ref> More article text.<ref name="MyFirstRef"/> Even more article text.

Doing so would create two footnote marks with the same number, pointing at the same footnote:

Article text.^[1] More article text.^[1] Even more article text.

Please note: The slash ("/") at the end of the second footnote tag is highly important. Usage of the Preview function is recommended.

Avoid multiple footnotes. Put all sources into a single note.

One of the problems that we run into with references is having multiple footnotes for one thing.

Here are the issues:

• It looks bad in the article, to have 7 or 8 footnotes in the text while you're trying to read it.
• It makes the article look like it has a lot of footnotes, when really it should only have fewer. All those separate footnotes for a single concept or idea could really be combined into one footnote.
• It makes the footnotes section look scattered and unrelated, if you were simply to go down to it and browse through it.

An example of the solution:

The regular way to do multiple footnotes.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The better way to do multiple footnotes.^[6] Even more article text.

What it looks like in the code:

The regular way to do multiple footnotes.<ref>1</ref><ref>2</ref><ref>3</ref><ref>4</ref><ref>5</ref> 
The better way to do multiple footnotes.<ref>
* 1
* 2
* 3
* 4
* 5</ref> Even more article text.

Limitations in this method:

• Only because of software limitations, this method cannot handle footnotes that have names. For example, <ref name="name_here" />. The only option right now is to leave those kinds of references as separate footnotes (the regular way).
  • But if you find a string of references that have no names set for them (usually because they are not used through the rest of the article), then you can combine them all as shown above.

Uncited Material at Conservapedia

Completely Uncited Article or Completely Uncited Section of an Article

If you see a article or section of an article that is completely uncited please feel free to put a uncited tag on that particular article or section of an article. Also, when placing a uncited tag on a article or section, please feel free to send the person or persons who wrote that section a friendly and gentle reminder regarding the uncited material plus a friendly thank you for contributing to Conservapedia. Having cited material helps insure that Conservapedia material is true and verifiable plus it provides a resource so readers can find more information on a subject.

Here is the tag you use to indicate a article or section of an article in uncited and please place it at the top of the article that is completely uncited or at the top of the section of the article that is completely uncited:

{{uncited}}

Uncited Sentence

If a sentence needs to be cited please uses the "fact" template at the end of the sentence.

Here is the fact template and please place it at the end of the uncited sentence:

{{fact}}

Examples

To see how these things are being used in an actual article, please see these two examples:

• Basic usage
• Advanced usage