Last modified: 2014-02-28 18:08:49 UTC
A system to help novice users enter bibliographic data. For types of sources where unique identifiers exist (such as books:ISBN, periodicals:ISSN and webpages:URL), a user would simply enter this unique identifier into a HTML form element. WikiMedia (or an extension) would lookup the relevant metadata within a local WikiMedia database. If the bibliographic source is not already in the local database, a lookup would be conducted through the various web services available (Library of Congress, Amazon, extracted from the URL page's head metadata, etc) and add the bibliographic source to WikiMedia bibliographic source database. For other source types (e.g., newspaper articles), the user would be presented with a more complex form to entere structured data into the database. Whether automatically retrieved successfully or manually entered, this database would entry would result in a unique ID for the bibliographic reference: a WikiMedia Catalog Number (or WMCN). Attaching this WMCN to a reference element would allow the automatic generation of a cited source list from the structrued bibliographic data record. Something like: <ref wmcn="ISBN:0691002606">See pp24-47</ref> <ref wmcn="ISBN:0691002606">See pp24-47</ref> Combined with: Notes Heading: <references /> <references /> Sources Heading: <sources&/gt; <sources /> would generate not only the list of notes, but also the bibliographic referenced source from the database: Sources Heading: Ptolemy, Claudius (1998). The Almagest. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. This scheme would extend the benefits of the existing ref and references elements to provide better support for bibliographic source lists, while leveraging the advnatages of those elements. It would also: 1) help ensure sources were consistently documented; 2) allow a further separation between content and presentation (user preferences could even specify how bibliographic data is presented); 3) allow easier extraction of bibliographic records according to a preferred scheme (such as BIBTex). (descriptive words: structure bibliography record reference citation cite note)
Above, I included both html character references and <> symbols because I didn't know how the system worked.
I can't figure out how to correct my feature request so I thought I'd make some corrections in a comment. I meant to use an attribute called source that would either take an ISBN and ISSn or the proposed wikimedia catalog number (WMCN). The example below shows a WMCN pointing to a digital video where the not includes a time reference to the precise place in the video. The references list would then generate appropriate citations that could be matched with the sources in the source list (with links between each). If was more familiar with development (especially in this enviornment) I'd jump in and put together a prototype. Please email me with any questions or clarifications about the proposed feature. <ref source="ISBN:0691002606">See pp24-47</ref> <ref source="wmcn:4253073001">timestamp 2:45</ref> Combined with: Notes Heading: <references /> Sources Heading: <sources />
Would this be something that could work with Wikidata?