<p>I don't think it should be enforced, but we can indeed encourage people to do it. When we start with some unified format, people will quickly pick that up. And high-rep users / moderators can always edit it in.</p>

<p>I would suggest the following guidelines:</p>

<ul>
<li>Using the Parenthesis Name Year format as proposed in (<a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/128/how-should-we-include-paper-references/132#132">Smit, P., 2010</a>), immediate linked to either doi or free pdf</li>
<li>Putting the actual references in sup tags <sup>(<a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/40035/allow-the-small-tag">hopefully small tags in future</a>, vote it up!)</sup></li>
<li>Including at least the doi link, and if available a link to a free pdf.</li>
</ul>

<p><sup>Smit, P. (2010) <em>Including references in answers</em> Meta Stats Stackexchange, doi, <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/128/how-should-we-include-paper-references/132#132">free link</a></sup></p>
