Rolling Stone review |
Which would be yeilded (once we write the script to do this) by this:
((proreview | publisher= Rolling Stone | stars = 4 | outof = 5 | author = [[David Fricke]] | date = [[August 2007]] | url = http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/15567484/review/15825602/young_modern ))
Would an expanding table be better than footnotes? I think either one might work well. I often prefer to replace the review link in the infobox with a link to a footnote that appears in the "references" or "notes and sources" section. Since some of the reviews are also sources of information for the article this avoids duplicating links to the same article. It also allows one to treat paper sources in the same way as the online ones. (here is an example]) I think it is good to offer as much infromation as possible on our sources. What is free and easy to link to on the internet today may or may not be there tomorrow. Listing reviews as references may also address some of the complaints that our album articles frquently have no sources. -MrFizyx 16:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
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((proreview | 1publisher= Rolling Stone | 1stars = 4 | 1outof = 5 | 1author = [[David Fricke]] | 1date = [[August 2007]] | 1url = http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/15567484/review/15825602/young_modern | 1accessed = [[July 12]], [[2007]] | 2publisher= Xdafied | 2stars = 5 | 2outof = 5 | 2author = | 2date = [[6 April]], [[2007]] | 2url = http://www.xdafied.com.au/music/reviews/11.html | 1accessed = [[9 May]], [[2007]] ))
Another option is to always make the link text "link" (not a date) and always include references which contain the date, author, and other info, possibly including the external link again, when any such additional info (other than the external link) is available. That makes it just as easy for readers to get to the external review as it is now (one click, as opposed to two), uses the standard reference format (for consistency with other references), is very compact, and allows for a more gradual implementation (still using bulleted lists, as opposed to collapsible tables). If we feel that the symbol to the right of the external links interferes with the reference we can wrap the entire professional reviews section in class="plainlinks"
to hide those symbols, as illustrated in the second example below:
[...]
==References==
--PEJL 03:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Note that my latest alternative was to not include dates in the infobox, but to have the link always be called "link" and to include references (which contain dates). Plainlinks seems particularily useful to me with this alternative, because the reference would be included just after the link, and the symbol and reference together look cluttered. In practice that would mean we'd be replacing the symbol with the reference. 13px definitely counts, as many reviews are on the verge of wrapping to a second line. (As such we may want to consider using plainlinks even if we don't make any other changes.) Using popup windows, opening new windows or otherwise opening the external link in a non-standard way is problematic for numerous reasons, and something I think we should definitely avoid. Speaking of which, besides the reasons listed above, another reason this link-ref format would probably be better than an expanding box are the accessibility problems associated with expanding sections. ((proreview)) is a reasonable name for a template, if it turns out we need one. I made a quick mock-up of such a template at User:PEJL/Template:Proreview, see example:
For some reason it appears to not generate the reference properly. We'll have to investigate that if we want to go down this road. --PEJL 07:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
*[[All Music Guide]] ((rating|4|5)) [http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte link]
*[[All Music Guide]] ((rating|4|5)) [http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte link]<ref>Stephen Thomas Erlewine, [http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte allmusic ((( Time on Earth > Overview )))], published [[June 2007]], retrieved [[19 August]], [[2007]].</ref>
((show|1=[[All Music Guide]] ((rating|4|5))|2=Review by [[Stephen Thomas Erlewine]]<br />Publication date: [[June 2007]]<br />[http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte External link]<ref>Stephen Thomas Erlewine, [http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte allmusic ((( Time on Earth > Overview )))], published [[June 2007]], retrieved [[19 August]], [[2007]].</ref>))
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How about that? Again, I know we're trying to avoid clutter, but this amends this issue we have. (If we go for this, I'll have to go through the trouble of re-formatting Time on Earth, but that's to be expected). So are we going to go for this, then? Oh, and we'd need to fix the lineheight with this way, too, but that's able to be attended later. lincalinca 09:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
<ref>...</ref>
), or use three templates, like this:| Reviews = ((Proreview start | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Rating = ((Rating|4|5)) ))<ref>((Proreview ref | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte | Published = [[June 2007]] | Accessed = [[August 21]], [[2007]] ))</ref>((Proreview end | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | Published = [[June 2007]] | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte ))
<div class="NavFrame collapsed" style="border-style: none; padding: 0px;"> <div class="NavHead" style="background: #f4f4ff; text-align: left; padding: 0px;">[[All Music Guide]] ((rating|4|5)) ((subst:proreviewref|1=(({1author))}|2=(({1url))}|3=(({1name))}|4=(({1date))}|5=(({1accessed))))}</div> <div class="NavContent" style="text-align: left; padding: 0px;"> <div style="background-color: white; text-align:left; border: 1px solid #f4f4ff; padding: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"> Review by (({1author))}<br />Publication date: (({1date))}<br />[(({1url))} External link]</div> </div></div>
yeilding this:
Review by (({1author))}
Publication date: (({1date))} [(({1url))} External link] |
Meanwhile, we'd have to write the one for ((proreviewref))
<ref>(({1))}, [(({2))} (({3))}], published (({4))}, retrieved (({5))}.</ref>
In the first one there, I've included the whole script that I wrote for the "show" template originally, except that I've pre-aligned it to the left. I'm going to try and see if this works, but I thought I'd throw the code in here and see if you think it's going to work. --lincalinca 11:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
So, after trying my hardest, I figure what's going to be best is if we substitute the template. I've done it and it works, but I don't know how to use the switch and if variables in the templates (not my bag, baby) but this only presents an issue with future users, but on the plus side, it works. We could even embed the three templates as you suggested, because substitution compensates for that. It's not perfect, but it gets us past this. Look here: User:Lincalinca/test region. I've substitued the info in.
What do you think? Think this is the path to take, or try and work around with something a bit simpler?--lincalinca 11:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
<div class="NavFrame collapsed">...</div>
, partly because we don't want to paint ourselves into a corner by hardcoding such raw code into articles (in case the class names are no longer supported in the future, for example). So even with substing I think we'll want the final result to be templates. So if we want an expanding box, the best we can expect to end up with is something like:| Reviews = ((subst:Proreview | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Rating = ((Rating|4|5)) | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte | Published = [[June 2007]] | Accessed = [[August 21]], [[2007]] ))
| Reviews = ((Proreview start | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Rating = ((Rating|4|5)) ))<ref>((Proreview ref | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte | Published = [[June 2007]] | Accessed = [[August 21]], [[2007]] ))</ref>((Proreview end | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | Published = [[June 2007]] | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte ))
| Reviews = *[[All Music Guide]] ((Rating|4|5)) [http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte link]<ref>((Proreview ref | Source = [[All Music Guide]] | Author = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | URL = http://wm06.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=10:jbfixz95ldte | Published = [[June 2007]] | Accessed = [[August 21]], [[2007]] ))</ref>
--PEJL 15:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I just thought of something, which kind of turns the final outcome on its head, but what if we put the references first? I don't know if the ((show)) template/formatting allows this, but it may. I'm suggesting this before sandboxing, so I'm going to try here and see if it works. I'll try and jig somethig now. lincalinca 04:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
<ref>((subst:proreviewref|1=(({1author))}|2=(({1url))}|3=(({1name))}|4=(({1date))}|5=(({1accessed))))}<ref><div class="NavFrame collapsed" style="border-style: none; padding: 0px;"> <div class="NavHead" style="background: #f4f4ff; text-align: left; padding: 0px;">[[All Music Guide]] ((rating|4|5))</div> <div class="NavContent" style="text-align: left; padding: 0px;"> <div style="background-color: white; text-align:left; border: 1px solid #f4f4ff; padding: 5px; margin-top: 5px;"> Review by (({1author))}<br />Publication date: (({1date))}<br />[(({1url))} External link]</div> </div></div>
Something like this maybe? I'll try and put it into action and see if it works/is buggy etc. lincalinca 04:46, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Another thing that just occurred to me is that if we go down this road, we'd break ((Review-Christgau)), if we want such reviews to be able to use refs.
BTW, I'm inserting this into a new section, but for some reason MediaWiki makes unrelated changes to the navHead section above. That is unintentional on my part. --PEJL 13:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)