Michael Turley wrote:
I wanted to add to my own post that Britannica and Encarta and similar others can get away with far fewer references and sources is because they aren't wikis. Everyone working on the publicly visible portions of product are paid professionals who lose their paychecks if they're not reliable and credible. We don't have that particular "luxury", so we need to cite sources and provide references.
That's certainly true, but references are also useful in their own right---providing references is a great way to point people to further reading. Even if I trusted 100% that the fact were correct and so didn't need a reference to verify it, it'd still be nice to know where it came from.
-Mark