On 10/4/06, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In my view, sourcing each article like it is a standalone entity is a
throwback to the dead-tree encyclopedia where cross-referencing is
very painful indeed. With hypertexting it is quite possible to
construct an article that doesn't suffer for lack of references at all
(or very few)- because each paragraph summarises the position of other
article(s) and links to them. The linked-to articles contain numerous
references supporting the summary and their own article.
I prefer to think that Wikipedia content is not limited to use on the
internet--if I want to print out an article for personal use or for
distribution, I don't want to have to print out every wikilinked article as
well. There have also been attempts to turn wikipedia articles into books
(WikiReaders, etc.); these would all be unsourced to some extent unless
every article that was wikified in the summary article (and probably several
more levels, since there are different levels of "summary") is included.
Furthermore, putting refences on the most specific articles puts the burden
on the reader to go and find the sources of the information found in the
summary articles. Sometimes it might not be clear--for example, if in the
[[Welding]] article I'm talking about welding power supplies used in arc
welding, should the reader go to [[welding power supply]] for the sources or
to [[arc welding]]? Or both? Unless there's a consistent system for this
(which I doubt is possible), the reader will not easily find the citation.
And what's the point of a citation if the reader can't find it?
Nathaniel