Sure, as above; gives a nice hanging indent:

~~~
\newenvironment{references} {\list{}{%
    \leftmargin1.5em%
    \itemindent-\leftmargin%
    \itemsep0.5ex%
    \parsep0pt%
    }}
    {\endlist}
~~~


On Friday, September 25, 2015 at 6:07:52 PM UTC, John MacFarlane wrote:

+++ nickba...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org [Sep 25 15 01:38 ]:
>   The latest changes seem to have broken my hanging indent filter again.
>   I tried to return to the previous version (see below), but this does
>   not work either. What am I doing wrong.
>   And again: Wouldn’t it be a good idea if the latex writer added a
>   `\begin{references} \item [entry] \item [entry] …  \end{references}`
>   environment itself, with a suitable definition in the template(s)?


Yes, this is probably a good idea.  Do you want to propose
a default definition of the environment?