T P wrote:
I despise the current FA practice that
"everything needs an inline
citation". Basically all you need to pass FA is a lot of citations.
I was a history major, so that requirement doesn't really bother me
except when people somehow think a statement isn't sourced even though
there's a reference at the end of the topic. Anyhow...
Can we slay this myth once and for all? Sources are a quick and easy
way to get junked or lose FA status, but it's not all you need. My
first real FA try ended up being twice as long as the article I was
nominating because of the "brilliant prose" requirement - talk about
subjective. I have no hard numbers, but I bet a lot more struggle due
to that then because of inadequate sourcing.
I'm not sure this is the same issue, but I had an
argument with someone who
wanted to include some loosely related material because it "related [the
subject] to people's lives". Frankly I don't think we need to
"sell" a
topic to the audience. People look up articles in an encyclopedia because
they are already interested in the subject, it's not like a magazine where
you come across the topic randomly.
Yeah, but I have a feeling we're heading in a direction where we're
going to begin failing at this. Part of Wikipedia's awesomeness (and
why I started contributing originally) was because...
a) Wikipedia probably has an article on what you're looking for.
b) If Wikipedia doesn't have an article on what you're looking for, you
can probably make it.
If we lose that, we lose our audience. Long tail, or something.
-Jeff
--
Name: Jeff Raymond
E-mail: jeff.raymond(a)internationalhouseofbacon.com
WWW:
http://www.internationalhouseofbacon.com
IM: badlydrawnjeff
Quote: "As the hobbits are going up Mount Doom, the
Eye of Mordor is being drawn somewhere else."
- Sen. Rick Santorum on the war in Iraq.