[WikiEN-l] Policy suggestions

Sun Jan 25 05:32:15 UTC 2004

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004, Stan Shebs wrote:

> Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> >
> >Currently, we have almost no references (I would
> >estimate 1 in 50 articles have references). To require
> >citations on all of them would be ridiculous.
> >
> Why? Notice how 1911EB has a little para of refs glued onto the
> end of each article, and they're not much noticed, but their length
> is easier to see if you turn into bulleted list. Modern "real"
> encyclopedias have refs on every article too, in very small print
> typically.
>
> Lack of refs is just another way for an article to be incomplete.
> Adding refs is more complicated than it needs to be however,
> and I've been designing a scheme to make it easier by using
> a new namespace a la images.
>
This is exactly what I had in mind: each article in Wikipedia *should*
have a number of entries of print materials under the "References" section,
especially of authors referred to in the article body. (For example, if
the article quotes one John Schmuck as saying, "This theory stinks", then
there should be a proper citation to the print source whence Schmuck's
quotation came.) However, I also acknowlege that it is possible that
certain topics probably don't lend themselves to a Reference section.

I think it would be desireable for articles to also have links to relevant
webpages, but due to the ephemeral nature of most web pages -- & the
widely uneven quality of most material on the web -- I acknowledge that
this resource won't be as widespread.

Geoff