Community Wishlist Survey 2019/Citations/Minimize references

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Minimize references

Problem: When you are editing in the source mode, as you enter text, you also add references, but sometimes the references contain so much data it's difficult to see the text you are writing.
Who would benefit: Facilitate the reading to the editors
Proposed solution: Add a "code folding" feature, with a toolbar button to minimize references and templates.
More comments: For example this text it's difficult to see which parts are prose and which parts are references/templates:

Entre sus actuaciones más importantes destacaron «''Runnin''» de [[Naughty Boy]] y [[Beyoncé]] que cantó junto a Agoney en la gala 1,<ref>{{Obra citada|título=Operación Triunfo - Míriam y Agoney cantan 'Runnin' en la gala 1 de OT|idioma=es-ES|url=http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/ot-2017/operacion-triunfo-miriam-agoney-cantan-runnin-gala-1-ot/4279058/|fechaacceso=28 de marzo de 2018|fecha=30 de octubre de 2017}}</ref> «''I Wanna dance With Somebody''» de [[Whitney Houston]] que cantó en la gala 8,<ref>{{Obra citada|título=Operación Triunfo - Miriam canta 'I wanna dance with somebody' en la Gala 8 de OT|idioma=es-ES|url=http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/ot-2017/operacion-triunfo-miriam-canta-wanna-dance-with-somebody-gala-8-ot/4379995/|fechaacceso=28 de marzo de 2018|fecha=19 de diciembre de 2017}}</ref> y «''What About Us''» de [[Pink]], tema que la clasificó para la final del concurso en la gala 11.<ref>{{Obra citada|título=What about us - Miriam - OT 2017 Gala 11 - RTVE.es|idioma=es-ES|url=http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/ot-2017/miriam-what-about-us-gala-11/4423244/|fechaacceso=28 de marzo de 2018|fecha=16 de enero de 2018}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cita noticia|título=Operación Triunfo ya tiene a sus cuatro primeros finalistas|url=http://www.lasprovincias.es/culturas/tv/operacion-triunfo-finalistas-20180115001916-nt.html|fecha=16 de enero de 2018|fechaacceso=28 de marzo de 2018|periódico=Las Provincias|idioma=es}}</ref>

But if we collapse the references then it's much clearer:

Entre sus actuaciones más importantes destacaron «''Runnin''» de [[Naughty Boy]] y [[Beyoncé]] que cantó junto a Agoney en la gala 1, «''I Wanna dance With Somebody''» de [[Whitney Houston]] que cantó en la gala 8, y «''What About Us''» de [[Pink]], tema que la clasificó para la final del concurso en la gala 11.

Phabricator tickets: (Related mentions in T166098, T142523. This could be expanded: T30684.)
Proposer: Vanbasten 23 (talk) 15:02, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Hmm, I'm pretty sure there was a proposal or technical work done for what was called "reference folding" which is what is being requested. Am I hallucinating? --Izno (talk) 20:46, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
- @Izno: "code folding" was mentioned in a few tasks as a good long-term goal, and I've just added it to T30684 (although that task is currently specifically about "templates" and not "generic markup" collapsing). Well remembered! :) Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 22:32, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've made (and self-reverted) a demonstration of how the collapsed elements could hypothetically appear. I don't know if you'd want to include something like that, or if you have better images/idea(s) of how it could be visualized, so I'll leave it to you to add something in. I've also made some copyedits to the explanation, please check that I haven't changed what you meant. Cheers :) Ping @Vanbasten 23: Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 23:01, 7 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My ultimate take on this problem (see proposal) would be moving the references to Wikidata, and providing in the wikitext only ID number. IMO the references should be eventually removed from the free text and stored in a structured, searchable, allowing an easy reuse database anyway. aegis maelstrom δ 17:54, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I tried a thing for sweeping all the refs to the end (in display only, it didn't change the text), but it messed up copy-paste a bit, as I recall, so I stopped using it. Does anyone know what it is called? It might fit the bill. HLHJ (talk) 07:41, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

en:Help:List-defined references? DMacks (talk) 19:23, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support Galobtter (talk) 19:01, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support StudiesWorld (talk) 19:42, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Paweł Ziemian (talk) 19:46, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Tom Ja (talk) 19:53, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wostr (talk) 19:58, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support De nue pw (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support DonBarredora (talk) 23:49, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:48, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support This is a great idea . Kpgjhpjm (talk) 09:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Afernand74 (talk) 09:21, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support It would be nice if one could minimize the size of the [1] text even in read mode, some articles have a lot of references in comparatively short text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:11, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 10:55, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Yilku1 (talk) 17:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support ··· 🌸 Rachmat04 · ☕ 18:34, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support —Thanks for the fish! ^{talk•contribs} 20:00, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support JAn Dudík (talk) 20:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wunkt2 (talk) 02:53, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vriullop (talk) 10:49, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Code folding for references would be really cool! Dvorapa (talk) 17:38, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support — Draceane ^talk_contrib. 17:59, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Continua Evoluzione (talk) 20:03, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Wesalius (talk) 21:16, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support although problem may be with standard textarea. Idea provided by aegis maelstrom maybe the good way. --Wargo (talk) 22:29, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Titore (talk) 02:34, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:51, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Another option (when creating references) would be to name the reference and stick the citation in the references section. Maybe a script that does this for existing articles. Or folding. I guess I am with aegis maelstrom δ in that the references don't really belong in the text. PopularOutcast (talk) 11:19, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support — J.S.^talk 15:08, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lostinlodos (talk) 01:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gareth (talk) 11:24, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support –Ejs-80 12:08, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mmitchell10 (talk) 20:51, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Great idea. Fredericknoronha (talk) 22:21, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support CAPTAIN RAJU^(T) 22:36, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Novak Watchmen (talk) 00:13, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Vulp here 04:53, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Somej (talk) 14:57, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm a minimalist Alan347 (talk) 10:22, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Orphée (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Siddhant (talk) 01:20, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support SarahSV ^talk 05:44, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Satdeep Gill (talk) 05:48, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jcornelius (talk) 23:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral References can be grouped inside <references>...</references> and referred to from articles using <ref name="..." />. Matěj Suchánek (talk) 08:54, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Hmxhmx 10:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Christi3443 (talk) 15:36, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support XoMEoX (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Uanfala (talk) 23:15, 25 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support StartTerminal (talk) 03:01, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Jklamo (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support There is a source-highlighter option that helps a bit but the sheer bulk of the template material still makes it hard to read the prose easily. This is a separate solution that sounds useful. For refs, it's a middle ground between inlining the full biblio and putting a named list in the References section itself. One of the main reasons I don't use en:Help:List-defined references is because I would need to open a second edit-window (for the ref section) if I only want to edit one section of an existing article, but the trade-off is that the single window I do use is cluttered as the proposal notes. DMacks (talk) 19:22, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Filipović Zoran (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support PJTraill (talk) 23:41, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Izno (talk) 01:01, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support YFdyh000 (talk) 16:57, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Framawiki (talk) 18:37, 27 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support As noted, the source-highlighting option helps, but not as much as one would hope. Daniel Case (talk) 02:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Kpjas (talk) 09:31, 28 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dumbassman (talk) 17:55, 29 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]