A fact from World War I prisoners of war in Germany appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 28 March 2008, and was viewed approximately 2,314 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This article makes excellent use of appropriate sources, however, the given bibliography is a bit confusing. The list could probably be shortened a bit by consolidating notes (will have to give a more thorough read later), but some tinkering definitely needs to be done with the formatting. Op cit is used in places that it shouldn't be. Instead of using it every time a previously-cited work is cited again, it should only be used when the work is just above the last cited work; otherwise, use Ibid. Also, there is no point to using Op cit or Ibid while simultaneously giving the name of the author: it's redundant. Of course, I see why one would do that for a constantly edited piece such as a wikipedia article. That is why I think the latin abbreviations should be removed from this reference guide, particularly since this one is so large.
This also would mesh with the suggestion re: Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style_recommendations, which says "Do not use ibid., op. cit. or similar abbreviations in footnotes. Other editors who add new references to the article may not take the time to correct Ibid references broken by their addition. Furthermore, not all readers are familiar with the meaning of the terms. If a reference is reused in more than one footnote, it is preferable to use the format "Smith, Short Title, 182" rather than "Ibid, 182", so as to avoid these problems, or use named references if appropriate."
