Quote:
Originally Posted by kovidgoyal
2. References of sufficient granularity can be achieved using paragraph numbers (and please don't trot out the three isolated examples where paragraph numbers don't work). The only software support needed for this is to make e-book reader software that can display an overlay of automatically generated paragraph numbers.
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I agree that using paragraph number could be a good alternative to page numbering. The concept is the same as with abstract page numbers, but I have to agree that paragraphs would be more logical and precise and would work in most cases. There would of curse usually be far more paragraphs then pages but I think that I can get used to that.
However for this to work there has either to be some agreed way of counting paragraphs set down by the World Paragraph Counting Consortium or the numbering has to embedded into the mark-up of the book by the publisher. On paragraph level I think that this has to be done by the publisher to be sufficiently precise. (Which would also resolve the issues with the three situations where paragraphs does not work - Marcel Proust, Comics and ...what is the last one?)
But what about text length? Since use of paragraphs vary quite enormously from genre to genre and between different authors I do not think that paragraphs could solve this issue?