On 10/4/06, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
In my view, sourcing each article like it is a standalone entity is a throwback to the dead-tree encyclopedia where cross-referencing is very painful indeed. With hypertexting it is quite possible to construct an article that doesn't suffer for lack of references at all (or very few)- because each paragraph summarises the position of other article(s) and links to them. The linked-to articles contain numerous references supporting the summary and their own article.
I prefer to think that Wikipedia content is not limited to use on the internet--if I want to print out an article for personal use or for distribution, I don't want to have to print out every wikilinked article as well. There have also been attempts to turn wikipedia articles into books (WikiReaders, etc.); these would all be unsourced to some extent unless every article that was wikified in the summary article (and probably several more levels, since there are different levels of "summary") is included.
Furthermore, putting refences on the most specific articles puts the burden on the reader to go and find the sources of the information found in the summary articles. Sometimes it might not be clear--for example, if in the [[Welding]] article I'm talking about welding power supplies used in arc welding, should the reader go to [[welding power supply]] for the sources or to [[arc welding]]? Or both? Unless there's a consistent system for this (which I doubt is possible), the reader will not easily find the citation. And what's the point of a citation if the reader can't find it?
Nathaniel