Is the use of <span id='xxx'></span> coding for sources still accepted policy?

Question

I have created a Free Space profile for a particularly helpful old family record book (see https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Old_Wallen_Record_Book) and based on the format in another free space profile, I included the suggested citation to this record using the <span id='xxx'></span> coding.  Since then, I've been using this citation format to that record in several profiles for family members named in it.  However, I have become concerned that this coding format for sources may have been previously approved but is now not recommended due to the complexity.  Is that correct, or is this still an acceptable citation format?  It is a very efficient tool to provide brief inline citations that allow the reader to easily jump to the full record and then to the free space profile, so I'd strongly prefer to use it if that's allowed, but I don't want to do this if that has been officially rejected as a matter of policy.   For an example of a profile that uses this source, see: [[Weddle-191|Thomas W. Weddle]].  Thanks!

Answer 1

You're not actually using the <span> tags the way other folks have promoted, they do something that points you to a specific page within an online book.

You are using a named ref tag, which then points to the free space, as an inline citation.

you are then additionally including a span tag as a bulleted item in the Sources that references the same thing, but is redundant, as you've already done that with the ref tag.

Case in point, the span tag can be even more confusing than the ref tag. My position is that it's unnecessary, and the official style position should be to discourage its use.

But I am not on the WikiTree Team

Comments

I may be misunderstanding you but I don't think it's redundant.  The inline citations do point to specific pages on the record book, and on some of the profiles where I use this source, different inline citations point to different pages in the record.  That was the reason I decided to use this method rather than <ref name=xx> tags, i.e., so I could have inline citations that point to different pages in the same source without repeating the whole full citation multiple times.  This way, a click on any inline citation takes you down to the single full citation in the bulleted source list, and then if you want more detail, clicking on the link in the full source takes you to the free space profile which has all of the background information about the source, including images and transcriptions.  

But I agree it could be confusing and if it's contrary to policy I can figure out another way to do it.   Thanks for the feedback.

Answer 2

See an example for using the span tag to be able to refer to a specific page in a book here https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:A_Wallen-Walling_Genealogy

Here's a profile that uses a couple of book in space pages with page numbers https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Scranton-207