Template:Rp/doc: Difference between revisions

This template is for appending page numbers in [[WP:HARV|Harvard referencing]] style (or [[AMA style]]<!--HELP! Is there some alt. term for AMA style? It is a redlink!-->, as an option &ndash; ''see "[[#With parentheses|With parentheses]]", below'') to [[WP:FN|Cite.php-generated inline reference citations]].  It is a solution for the problem of an article with a source that must be cited many, many times, at numerous different pages. It is an alternative to the more common method of using [[WP:CITESHORT|shortened footnotes]], that does not require the reader to follow two links to see the source. The Cite.php <code><nowiki><ref&nbsp;...></nowiki></code> footnoting system is desired to be used instead of the incredibly tedious and easy-to-break {{tl|ref label}} and {{tl|note label}} system (tedious and fragile in ''this'' context; the templates are not terribly difficult to use and are quite useful in other situations).   

The problem of course is that a work cited 100+ times with page numbers in each appearance, with individual <code><nowiki><ref&nbsp;...></nowiki></code>'s will result in more than 100 lines generated for the same source by <code><nowiki><references&nbsp;/></nowiki></code> (or {{tl|Reflist}}),^{&#91;[[#note1|*note]]&#93;} while using a single <code><nowiki><ref&nbsp;...>...</ref></nowiki></code> and followup <code><nowiki><ref&nbsp;...&nbsp;/></nowiki></code>'s with the same <code>name=</code> and simply mentioning all of the pages cited, in the single line generated by <code><nowiki><references&nbsp;/></nowiki></code> could result in at least 100 pages being specifically cited in a single reference citation footnote, rendering it basically unreadable and certainly useless.  Given that [[WP:FA|Featured Article]] and sometimes even [[WP:GA|Good Article]] review generally insist upon specific facts being cited with specific page numbers, Cite.php's limitations are in fact a severe problem for editors.  Even more importantly, either of the two results above is a severe problem for encyclopedia readers.   

* [[WP:CITESHORT|Shortened footnotes]] in [[Wikipedia:Citing sources]], which describes the most common way of citing multiple pages of the same source.