We've discussed adding link support for citations, so that someone could type, in a question or answer, some shorthand, and the server would expand it to a link to a specific page on mechon-mamre.org
or e-daf.com
or hebrewbooks.org
or he.wikisource.org
or wherever.
That discussion has not yielded any fruit. While it sounded great in theory, it sort of got bogged down in the details. For example, who would maintain a list of such sources, that the server could then check the list to see where to link to? and so on.
However, Isaac pointed out a site that maintains such a list already, though only for Tanach (and, l'havdil, the Christian bible). It is http://bibref.hebtools.com or http://bibref.joelnothman.com/bibref.php.
I propose therefore that SE copy bibref.joelnothman.com
's (Jewish-oriented) lookup tables and script — the script is on the page linked to above, and the lookup tables are linked to therefrom (e.g.) — (or write its own script) to our own site and that the server turn markdown like [ref:rashi:Gen. 2.3]
into a link of the form [Gen. 2.3](http://bibref.joelnothman.com/bibref.php?book=Gen.&verse=2.3&src=JPR)
(try it). (Note that the script is marked "Free for distribution and derivation, but if you think it's that good, please cite the author!".)
Note that bibref.joelnothman.com
's script is very loose, allowing 2.3
and 2:3
(and perhaps other things) and various spellings and abbreviations of the names of the books.
The benefit of this proposal over the old one is it's specific about what sources to link to (the Jewish ones listed on bibref.joelnothman.com
, let's say specifically the ones to which that site assigns "src keys" TO ([ref:onk:gn 2.3]
), HE ([ref:gen 2.3]
), JPR ([ref:rashi:gen 2.3]
), and ORT ([ref:kaplan:gen 2.3]
)) and that the lookup tables are pre-made.
biblegateway.com
site so not immediately adaptable to our purposes here; note also that the proposal in this question comes with already made, already licensed PHP.