Forum:Clarification on how to cite of out-of-universe information

I was archiving a discussion that ended with an apparently easy definite change to the Manual of Style, when it occurred to me that it made no sense.

The thread suggested, and Tangerineduel accepted, that when you're citing an in-universe fact, use in-line citations, but when you're citing an out-of-universe fact, use footnotes. And that's pretty much what tardis:Manual of Style says right now. But if that's true, why do we have the REF tag? Or CON, or DCOM, or. ..

Is all out-of-universe information to be cited with footnotes universally? Cause I know I've not done that. In articles like Planet of Giants, I'm droppin' REF: The First Doctor Handbook with impunity. I often use DOC or CON references. Is that really meant to be wrong? I mean, sure, I could switch over to always using footnotes, but if we do that, we really should remove all the non-fictional prefixes. Their existence implies it's okay to use them.

Also, in the previous discussion, the example given was Varnax. The footnote there merely lists the name of the book. It's a long way around of achieving the same level of information as REF: The Nth Doctor. If we're going to insist on footnotes in real world passages, I think we need to settle on a proscribed footnote format that gives us more bang for our buck. We have to insist, at a minimum, upon a linked book name (if that book exists on this wiki), and a page number. Otherwise we're taking up way more space for the same amount of information.

Thoughts? 23:11:02 Tue 31 May 2011