On Feb 27, 2007, at 5:19 AM, John Lee wrote:
The trouble I have with the citation fetish is that it goes
overboard. For
example, let's say that I have two or three core sources for an
article -
webpages written by published and respected authors and experts in the
field. Does it make sense to cite these pages for every little
detail in the
article, or does it make sense to collate them in one section
titled as
references? I would argue that it is the latter that matters, but
the inline
citation fetishists have succeeded in making the typical reading of
our
guidelines closer to the former. As Phil (I think) noted not too
long ago,
one article even has a footnote for the name of the article's
subject! This
only makes sense if the name is a disputable/unique detail (e.g.
[[Jeff
Ooi]] is always known as Jeff Ooi to most Malaysians, but his legal
name is
Ooi Chuan Aun, so it makes sense to provide a citation for the
latter in the
lead).
I think we need to distinguish among three tiers of information.
1) Needs a citation
2) Would be nice if it had a citation
3) Doesn't need a citation.
Remove all of #1 that lacks a citation. Leave #2 and #3 alone, adding
them if you have them handy. But it's non-essential.
-Phil