[sparkzilla]

We use a footnoting system to reference books, although with increasing digitization this should be less necessary. As for the Tom Hanks example, you're right, that should include the YouTube "start time" parameter to link directly to the exact time he talks about his ancestry. Adding that parameter shows another advantage of direct linking -- that it can go deep into a video source.

I don't agree that the footnotes system is good for the reader or editor, because it obfuscates the link between the text and the source. It is very easy to add biased information to any wiki page. Let's say someone writes "Donald Trump calls McCain a war hero" but the reader thinks, "Hmm that's not what I heard". On Wikipedia they have to go to the footnotes and then click through, losing track of where they were at on the main article. How many people will do that? Not many. So the reader gets misinformation, and loses trust in the site, and the bias remains.

Instead if a link direct to the video is added then the person will know straight away. Even better if the video is embedded directly, but that's another story.