Daniel Mayer wrote:
--- Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)earthlink.net>
wrote:
I suspect our efforts are more likely to head in
this direction at least
for now, as the efforts to produce WikiReaders already show. I don't
know if this path will lead us to the encyclopedia model of the past, or
if we should encourage people to reconceive of the full encyclopedia as
a collection of individual specialist encyclopedias.
That is in fact what Wikipedia already is. But the larger context is that those
component encyclopedias must also fit in the general encyclopedia framework.
Thus we have many different readerships to serve all at once. Use of summary
style helps us accomplish this by allowing people to zoom to the level of
detail they need while not forcing too much detail on those who need a more
condensed version.
An interesting question that raises: Are there in principle *any* limits
on the level of detail we want in Wikipedia? Should we try in some
vague sense to maintain articles as broad overviews in the style of the
traditional encyclopedia, or is arbitrary detail okay as long as it's
neutral, verifiable, not original research, and somehow organized so
it's optional for those who want the broader overview? For example,
there have been dozens of lengthy bibliographies published on [[George
Washington]]'s life, and there's a wealth of other material out there,
including scholarly debate on relatively minor points of his life; in
principle, our treatment of him could include all this, expanding to the
point where it consists of maybe 300-400 pages of text. Good idea? Bad
idea?
-Mark