Chris's Wiki :: blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem Commentshttps://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem?atomcommentsDWiki2010-03-17T00:45:40ZRecent comments in Chris's Wiki :: blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem.From 94.64.220.56 on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:a2ef642ee8f840603797705ec57f9d30ea381adcFrom 94.64.220.56<div class="wikitext"><p>I think <a href="http://www.marco.org/369636426">these</a> <a href="http://www.marco.org/370645975">asides</a> are a moderately futile attempt at emulating print output with HTML. While it's an interesting presentation hack, it feels like something that defeats the entire point of wildly interconnected and hyperlinked text. This way instead of being able to keep reading with the "flow" of the text itself:</p>
<blockquote><p>iPhones and iPods Touch in use today: 50-60 million. Apple reports that it has sold over 70 million, but I’m assuming that not every device sold is still in use.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One has to jump around just to get at a small bit of text that is interestingly related to what one is currently reading. This feels wrong, but then again it's just my own personal way of looking at it.</p>
<p>Then there's the case of the hyperlink footnote. When one sees text like:</p>
<blockquote><p>iPhones sold in the first year (Q3-4, FY 2007): about 1.4 million(2).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and then has to scroll down to the end of the page to see that the footnote merely lists a URL. I often prefer seeing the same text written with the link right there in the middle of the text it refers to:</p>
<blockquote><p>iPhones sold in the first year (Q3-4, FY 2007): <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter_simple.svg">about 1.4 million</a>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I don't think it makes sense to try to emulate a printed page of output by using fancy tricks. The web is a vastly different medium. It seems both pointless and wrong to try to shoehorn it into a peg that looks like a printed page; because it really <em>isn't</em> exactly what a printed page is.</p>
<p>-- Giorgos Keramidas</p>
</div>2010-03-17T00:45:40ZBy Chris Siebenmann on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:28bd4b272d688a538ec2f93e189e226545ff303bChris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>Well, my view is that you need some way to handle asides; footnotes are
one of the traditional approaches. I don't think that well done footnotes
are necessarily worse than any of the other approaches.</p>
<p>(Embedding things in parenthetical asides is the one that I use (or
abuse), but it can somewhat take over the main text, as I periodically
demonstrate.)</p>
</div>2010-02-09T21:41:04ZFrom 203.59.102.239 on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:ee93615d1629fbececf7c2e584cf246bf978c4b2From 203.59.102.239<div class="wikitext"><p>Those examples are just bloggers being wanky. Don't Use Footnotes In Blogs!</p>
</div>2010-02-09T06:59:05ZBy Chris Siebenmann on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:bcb5643b81cb044f4ea91ece1b265676f8f86814Chris Siebenmann<div class="wikitext"><p>I should have clarified this: I'm thinking of footnotes used as asides or
extra commentary, as opposed to footnotes-as-citations. Citations can just
be direct links on the web and everyone is used to that usage, so there's
no problem with handling them.</p>
<p>(Indeed, the explicit footnotes I've seen in blog entries tend to be of
the aside form, eg <a href="http://www.marco.org/369636426">here</a> and
<a href="http://www.marco.org/370645975">here</a>.)</p>
</div>2010-02-08T17:40:37ZBy nothings on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:9e07169ed19fc62d53e858a05c39ef747e24abadnothings<div class="wikitext"><p>These days when writing long HTML documents I've ended up using a pretty arbitrary convention: I provided an unlinked numbered footnote in the text, and then the footnote itself appears as the very next paragraph after the current one (in <small></small>).</p>
<p>This is kind of totally wrong compared to how they work on the page in books; but then again the division of books into pages is itself arbitrary (and notoriously problematic with long footnotes), and the feeling when you get when clicking a footnote teleports you a long way down in a document, even if there's a back link, is enough to make me feel like this is actually a <em>better</em> way, not a cheap hack.</p>
<p>(Well, maybe they should still be linked, I'm just too lazy to bother.)</p>
</div>2010-02-07T16:44:56ZFrom 98.223.162.254 on /blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblemtag:CSpace:blog/web/BlogFootnoteProblem:eb06fda80277b00c53fefaf73da97a49bd916689From 98.223.162.254<div class="wikitext"><p>For blogs, I'm not convinced footnotes are relevant. In print, I generally see footnotes use to give citations. On a webpage, that's just as easily accomplished with a direct link to the source in many cases.</p>
<p>Ben Cotton</p>
</div>2010-02-07T15:04:11Z