When I make a simple footnote, it doesn’t prompt me with the meaning of it. But if this “^1” were recognized inside a link, it would change things. Let me try to show it as an example:
On edit mode, I’d write:
This is a test[[Feature request|^1]]
On preview mode, it would show me:
This is a test¹
But when I hovered over the ¹, it would prompt me the preview of the “Feature request” page
Isn’t that great?