On 2/27/07, Delirium <delirium(a)hackish.org> wrote:
I don't see why we would look foolish for having good historical
coverage. If a field was *ever* of enough note to have multiple
reliable sources we can cite, then we ought to cover it, and that will
still be true 15 and 150 years from now. The solution to imbalanced
coverage between present-day and older stuff is not to reduce our
generally thorough coverage of present-day stuff, but to greatly improve
our much sparser coverage of anything older than 50 years. Was there
some field of study that was briefly popular in 1830 but faded to
insignificance by 1845? If anyone's written anything reliable about it
that we can cite, then I'd like to be able to read an article on the
subject.
That's a valid point. I am concerned, however, that people will write stuff
in the heat of the moment and not go back and revise with the benefit of
hindsight.
Adam