I really feel like the lack of well-structured citations is what's keeping many Wikipedia articles back. It's just not good enough to throw some paper reference (potentially behind a paywall) or a news article after a full paragraph of text.
Often when editing a page, I am left wondering where exactly the previous editor has gotten a fact from. The Wiki markup even allows "quotes", i.e. short extracts of what exactly you're referring to, but I've yet to see anyone beside myself actually use it consistently.
Having a structured list of references for a given topic in a Wikipedia article is incredibly helpful!
I mean, there is even stuff like linking to pages in PDF files... but I feel like it's another feature that's rarely used.
Maybe, in an ideal world, I could imagine an editing experience with a split screen editor with the article text and the references open at the same time. Right now, it does feel like references are an afterthought in the editing workflow.
Often when editing a page, I am left wondering where exactly the previous editor has gotten a fact from. The Wiki markup even allows "quotes", i.e. short extracts of what exactly you're referring to, but I've yet to see anyone beside myself actually use it consistently.
Having a structured list of references for a given topic in a Wikipedia article is incredibly helpful!