Citation needed
What methods do people use to turn their MediaWiki instances into actual useful software?
OK, I know that's a loaded question, so let me explain.
I want to be able to do "Wikipedia-style" citations. And, you might think that this is a feature built-in to the software. It is not. And adding the Cite extension does not provide the polished feature functionality that I want. (Extension CiteThisPage is beside the point - although very useful). As an aside, the more that 3rd-party wikis can resemble Wikipedia, the easier it is to gain editors of Wikipedia (they've already learned how) at the same time that contributors to Wikipedia will be familiar with the software presented by 3rd-party instances.
Admittedly, if you review the mw:Help:Cite (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Cite) page, the Cite extension is very powerful and feature-rich.
It's just that I want to be able to quickly enter a Citation in "Chicago Style" (The Chicago Manual of Style) or the general 80% use-case citation style by filling out a dialog box or template but without needing to brush up on things I might have learned while writing papers in college.
It's great that the open source community - both developers and editors - has been hacking away at Citations as a feature for years (e.g. 2021 Wishlist Survey results for Citations 2022 2023).
There has also been a years-long initiative to create "Global templates"
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates/Taxonomy
- https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Global_templates/Taxonomy#Citations
But in a 3rd-party context, I don't want to have to know or understand any of that in order to accomplish the simple task at hand: creating a citation/footnote in a standard format.
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I probably am writing this prematurely. I need to upgrade this site to the latest version of MediaWiki and VisualEditor because there are (apparently) some functionalities built-in now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:VisualEditor#Using_standard_cite_templates
It looks like you need to create your own templates - the original problem! To quote from WMDE Technical Wishes/extending references: And then, you install the Visual Editor citation tool |
It has bothered me for a long time that you can't re-use templates from WMF due to "dependency hell" (using that term loosely here to describe the cascading inclusion of dozens of templates and modules). I imported dozens of templates and modules in 2017 in an attempt to get basic "citation" and "Infobox" templates. This is still the technique for implementing the Citation Tool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Citation_Style_1
My Wiki is Not Wikipedia
Wikipedia (and the world-wide collection of language and project encyclopedias) has developed an extensive toolset, policy for citing sources, and technical infrastructure for citations and footnotes. For example, there is the "Sfn" (short footnote) template which combines citations in a page and creates a footnote. I don't need all that. I don't want all that.
As an additional aside, 3rd-party wikis should absolutely create their own "Manual of Style" and other guidelines to assist their community -- something which obviously doesn't come with the software.
Solution
A basic set of templates and possibly Lua code, system messages and Project namespace content bundled into a Page Exchange bundle.
See Also
Workboard for a "Cite Extends" or so-called "book referencing" from German Wikipedia community https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Technische_W%C3%BCnsche/Topw%C3%BCnsche/Erweiterung_der_Einzelnachweise https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/4256/