Forum:Reference Lists on Episode Summaries


 * Moved from User talk:Shran where the discussion began so that it's easier for more people to join in...

I've notice lately that you've been removing some references from the reference section on episodes. Now, I know that the episodal template does note that the section is for 'references not previously linked in the page' (or some words similar to that), but I've noticed (and found) that most of the episode pages try to make the reference section as complete as possible with respect to things referenced in the episode, even if previously linked. In some ways, it does improve the ability of the average joe reader (or josephine) to simply go to the references section and be able to see "all" of the references from an episode. Might this be something that we (meaning all of MA) should discuss in the relevant place (wherever that is in this case...)? That way, we can at least have some consistency between episodes :) -- Sulfur 02:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I was just following the norm of things. Feel free to bring it up for discussion on a relevant page, though (Ten Forward, most likely). I'm not sure there's a need to re-link references which were already linked in the episode's summary, but we'll see if anyone else feels there needs to be a change. :) --From Andoria with Love 02:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not neccessarily thinking a change is in order... just some consistency :) Although, on a wiki that really is shooting for the moon and all. -- Sulfur 02:47, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'll comment again when this is brought up in Ten Forward, but I agree with Sulfur's original comment here. The thing is, those episode summaries can get very long, and I find it useful to have a complete list of references at the end of the article in addition to the summary. --OuroborosCobra talk |undefined  02:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, consistency is a pretty huge feat on a wiki. :P I was going to say we could just remove the repeated references as we come across the relevant episodes, but let's see what a Ten Forward discussion brings up. --From Andoria with Love 02:52, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I think we had some discussion like this already. My opinion is to have a complete list at the end, because as already stated the text can be long and one once mentioned topic cannot be found easily in there. In MA/de we are slowly beginning to adopt the style used in MA/fr (see fr:Caretaker). -- Kobi 15:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sure that we've had it previously too, I just couldn't find it to save my life, so started it anew here, hoping that someone would recognize it. :)  In terms of the fr: style that you're starting to use in de:, I'm not totally convinced on it at this point.  On do believe that references should be split with a semi colon  rather than a comma  though, especially as it suits shipnames and person names -- Sulfur 15:19, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I also think that we should have one reference list at the bottom of the episode page, where everything is organized alphabetically and also were everything is a link, and not like I've seen somewhere just white text, because the reference has been mentioned earlier somewhere in the summary.
 * It is okay to have names of characters that were played by actors not appear there, because they can be found directly above the reference list anyway. I would prefer if we kept it like we have it at the moment, just one long list of entries and not group them like the French MA, I think it doesn't make things easier to find or better organised but quite the opposite. If I want to search for a term in an episode, I just browse the alphabetical list and can find what I look for pretty quickly, especially if I know the name of the "thing" but just don't remember how it was spelled or under which name the article is kept at Memory Alpha. Well, just my two cents. --Jörg 16:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with what seems to be the majority at the moment. I think it doesn't really hurt to link articles twice or more times, if the length of the article warrants it. At least from the reference section, but even the main text should be allowed to have multiple links, if that is done moderately. I believe the guideline of linking each article only once should be seen as something to prevent an article to be linked every time it comes up, not as something to force readers to find the one and only link to an article in 4-5 screens full of text. :) -- Cid Highwind 11:49, 26 July 2006 (UTC)