user107: Should we come up with a site-wide standard for reference formatting? I'm talking about primary literature citations. The current situation is highly variable (I notice even within my own answers).
Options

Inline links with no full citations: Smith and Jones (2011)
Manual numbered references: [1], [2-3]
Superscripts: (I'm not sure how this is accomplished)
Just a link to pubmed: Smith and Jones (pubmedlink here)
Others that I haven't thought of

Pro

Unified look
References easy to find

Con

Significant editing time


user22057: Until it’s made easier, any edict will be ignored and the Mods have better things to do than police something like this. I generally go for in-text links because I find the syntax simpler to remember, it is clear what they relate to and they do not disturb the text flow:
[linked text](link)


user72: I would support using links with the author names and years (e.g. Smith and Jones, 2011, a la Cell Press). I believe this is more consistent with the citation style of most biological and biomedical journals. The URL, I think, should be a link to the PubMed entry using the PMID or directly to the article using a DOI because these are stable links. When there is no DOI, a link to PubMed would be preferred over a direct link to the journal's URL. 
This style also has the benefit that it does not require the answer to have formatted citations at the bottom, which is an unnecessary burden when a stable link will do.
The numbered citation style, I think, is only used by a few high-profile journals in biology.

107: <p>Should we come up with a site-wide standard for reference formatting? I'm talking about primary literature citations. The current situation is highly variable (I notice even within my own answers).</p>

<h2>Options</h2>

<ul>
<li>Inline links with no full citations: Smith and Jones (2011)</li>
<li>Manual numbered references: [1], [2-3]</li>
<li>Superscripts: (I'm not sure how this is accomplished)</li>
<li>Just a link to pubmed: Smith and Jones (pubmedlink here)</li>
<li>Others that I haven't thought of</li>
</ul>

<h2>Pro</h2>

<ul>
<li>Unified look</li>
<li>References easy to find</li>
</ul>

<h2>Con</h2>

<ul>
<li>Significant editing time</li>
</ul>
 22057: <p>Until it’s made easier, any edict will be ignored and the Mods have better things to do than police something like this. I generally go for in-text links because I find the syntax simpler to remember, it is clear what they relate to and they do not disturb the text flow:</p>
<pre><code>[linked text](link)
</code></pre>
 72: <p>I would support using links with the author names and years (e.g. Smith and Jones, 2011, a la Cell Press). I believe this is more consistent with the citation style of most biological and biomedical journals. The URL, I think, should be a link to the PubMed entry using the PMID or directly to the article using a DOI because these are stable links. When there is no DOI, a link to PubMed would be preferred over a direct link to the journal's URL. </p>

<p>This style also has the benefit that it does not require the answer to have formatted citations at the bottom, which is an unnecessary burden when a stable link will do.</p>

<p>The numbered citation style, I think, is only used by a few high-profile journals in biology.</p>
