What websites integrate footnotes well?
July 25, 2017 9:38 AM Subscribe
I'm creating footnote-heavy content for a website. Can you point to any websites that do footnotes well?
Hoping to find design and implementation inspiration.
Hoping to find design and implementation inspiration.
Best answer: Wikipedia.
(Parenthetical note: A pet peeve of mine is that too many essay writers for the web use footnotes that would have been better served as parenthetical notes.)
posted by ejs at 9:50 AM on July 25, 2017
(Parenthetical note: A pet peeve of mine is that too many essay writers for the web use footnotes that would have been better served as parenthetical notes.)
posted by ejs at 9:50 AM on July 25, 2017
Best answer: Edward Tufte style, using sidenotes rather than footnotes.
posted by Kabanos at 9:53 AM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by Kabanos at 9:53 AM on July 25, 2017 [9 favorites]
Best answer: Fireside's 2016 #BlackSpecFic Report uses footnotes in a way that I personally really like (because it's obvious that there are notes, I can read them in their entirety without losing my place, and they also live at the bottom of the page so I can see them all later/c&p if needed). I realize the design will feel too intrusive to some people.
posted by wintersweet at 10:36 AM on July 25, 2017
posted by wintersweet at 10:36 AM on July 25, 2017
Best answer: Wait But Why (example post, cmd-f for 'click these') and Marco Arment's blog both do footnotes quite nicely, with popups. In Arment's case, they are also at the bottom of the post.
posted by Happy Dave at 10:42 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Happy Dave at 10:42 AM on July 25, 2017 [1 favorite]
The Tufte style sidenotes seem to work better given the nature of a website, where footnotes would require you to constantly scroll down, then back up, hopefully not losing your place in the process.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Thorzdad at 12:55 PM on July 25, 2017 [2 favorites]
Seconding TomFoolery, came here to post Genius also. That always seemed the best way to me - I it much better than the popup style, since the popup tends to cover the actual text. I like the Tufte style also (unsurprisingly, since it's similar), but the Genius variety seems like it'd work best when there's a lot of notes and they're very long.
posted by sailoreagle at 2:18 PM on July 25, 2017
posted by sailoreagle at 2:18 PM on July 25, 2017
I would agree that the tufte style one suffers where individual notes are all really long. If it's multiple short notes it still works ok.
posted by Kabanos at 8:39 PM on July 25, 2017
posted by Kabanos at 8:39 PM on July 25, 2017
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posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:45 AM on July 25, 2017