On 1/25/07, Geoffrey Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
Three or four years ago, Jimbo ranted about all of the external links he was finding in articles. IIRC, his point was that we didn't need any external links, that a Wikipedia article ought to stand on its own, and be better than any other website on the subject.
It's a value trade-off. For many stubs, there's already a perfect article out there on the subject. Linking to it is great. What's the additional value in spending hundreds of hours trying to get that one obscure article up to the same quality?
Have a look at [[Club skifield]] (which I wrote). Follow the external link. Is it really worth our (my) while attempting to write something that surpasses the link in terms of quality, depth, comprehensiveness of coverage? Practically speaking, who is going to be reading Wikipedia that doesn't have access to the net, but needs that information?
Steve