2009/9/23 Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com>om>:
Because transclusions like that are dynamic, that sort
of thing
severely messes up the page history - you can't see what the article
looked like at any one time, because the editing took place in the
subarticles, not on the main article, and even if you look back at
that page version "12 July 2009", what you are seeing there is
transclusions of what the lead sections of the subarticles say *now*.
Mmm. Transclusions of summaries like this is bad, but actually
*writing* summary sections, cited and robust, with {{main|whatever}}
at the top is a perfectly legitimate way of dealing with a sprawling
topic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States is a pretty good example -
almost every single section and subsection there is effectively a
summary of a larger, more focused, article on one aspect of the
subject.
Is the fact that this is the only presidential
transition to get its
own article because this is the most intensely documented presidential
transition in history? Or is it because Wikipedia's segmented coverage
of Barack Obama's life has gone too far? Or is it because the other
articles on presidential transitions have yet to be written?
Never underestimate the effects of recentism ;-)
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk