Honestly, I think if the Cite extension had been installed from the
first years of the ArchWiki or so, it's very likely that today it would
be used extensively and we would feel it like an indispensable tool.
However, what we are instead doing is use plain inline links, e.g.:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet (see [http://example.com Blog article name]),
consectetur adipiscing
elit. Donec porta ligula eu pharetra pretium. Donec eu lacus ac purus
mattis tincidunt id in nunc. Donec rutrum turpis urna[http://example.com],
ut volutpat nisl consequat nec. Etiam in ultrices erat [http://linux.com
Linux foundation].
Yes, this is uglier, but it's always worked ok, since, unlike on
Wikipedia, we don't require to provide references for every single
statement, so there shouldn't be the need to insert too many links.
That said, I would be available for discussing the installation of that
extension, as well as several others that would greatly facilitate the
maintenance of the wiki, but the problem is that there's not enough
workforce (i.e. Developers) to maintain the repo even as it is now;
consider for example the fact that the current version of MediaWiki is
1.24, but we're still using 1.22 for undisclosed reasons; or see the
wiki bug reports that have been opened for several months now,
effectively discouraging opening new ones and instead making it
necessary to find workarounds like the recently created
MediaWiki:Archlinux.css page to fix some CSS bugs. Until the ArchWiki
will find some more interested Developers to take care of it, I don't
really think that any extensions will ever be installed, and that's why
I'm trying to suggest viable alternatives like the inline links above,
recommending to concentrate our efforts into writing the best articles
that we can we the tools that are available now :)
Dario (Kynikos)
