Forum:Suggestion on adding references from both in-universe and real world perspectives

A minor suggestion I have relating to using references on articles in both an in-universe and real world perspective.

Just so to keep in style. For say articles involving characters, planets, objects, ships etc.

For the sections about the character, biography and personal information you can simply next the bit information this eg. (TV: The Beast Below).

However its when with the Behind the Scenes section which here we're looking at an in real perspective may I suggest instead adding footnotes for example

These ideas you can see what I did to the article Varnax.

So although this doesn't appear to be much of a problem, could we maybe please adopt this style and layout? --Vitas 02:00, October 9, 2010 (UTC)


 * In the development of the Manual of Style, and the increased requirement for citation we've been through a few different methods. But yes, this seems good.
 * I've amended the Manual of Style to specify this. --Tangerineduel 12:13, October 9, 2010 (UTC)

Archivist's notes
Um, surprisingly tricky one this. It was broadly turned into policy, yes. That is, in-universe information gets in-line citations, like:


 * As a child, Mel took dancing lessons. (PDA: [[Business Unusual)

And certainly the use of formal reference footnoting is only allowed with out of universe information. If you're quoting a page number for a quote from JNT about his reaction to the firing of Colin Baker, you'd surely do it with ref tags, rather than some in-line method.

But the implication of having a prefix like REF is that it's okay to make in-line references to out-of-universe materials. And I, personally, don't think the example above is a great one. You wouldn't use a footnote if all you're going to do is list the book name. Varnax would be better off with {REF: The Nth Doctor), if specific page numbers aren't going to be cited.

So yes, this did get written into the MOS, but at the moment, it's not clear whether there's supposed to be an outright ban on inline citation of OOU material, what's the use of the REF prefix, or whether there should be additional guidelines as to the form a footnote must take.

See Forum:Clarification on how to cite of out-of-universe information for a new round of discussion about this. 22:56:46 Tue 31 May 2011