User:Physchim62/Sandbox2

Firstly, welcome to Wikipedia, and thank-you for your interest in our project: Thank-you as well for correcting the factual error on our Organic Synthesis article! I am the person who designed the template you're "complaining" about, so I hope I can be of assistence.

It is probably simpler to address your second point first, the fact that Wikipedia does not use ACS, RSC, Elsevier or Wiley-VCH style in citing references. This is, of course, true; it may well be seen as a Bad Point from the view of a professional publisher. However, we do attempt to keep a single reference style within a given article, which is, in itself, not simple given the number of subject areas that we cover. In practice, we have two major reference styles, one based on commas and the other based on full points, because the debate as to whether the comma or the full point was a better method of separating bibliographical material threatened to overwhelm the much more necessary effort to add the bibliographical material in the first place! The template that we encourage for Org. Synth. references will give a reference in one of the two main "Wikipedia styles", which I think is perfectly clear bibliographically.

To come to your first point, our maximum priority is to to have references that are correct in the sense of being accurate and unambiguous. To have a consistent style is a bonus, but one soons runs into the law of diminishing returns. I agree with you that the annual volume is the "primary" reference for a paper in Org. Synth. and so should be listed first, although I note that several other reference works in organic chemistry only cite the Collective Volume references. I guess what is happening is that many articles do not use the formatting template {{OrgSynth}}. I'll have a think to see if we can improve these references, but it is not a trivial problem: in the meantime, feel free to complete them as you think best should you come across them. Physchim62 14:30, 8 September 2010 (UTC)