phoebe ayers wrote:
interesting quick article about the trials and
tribulations of other
open access encyclopedia projects:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/12/14/encyclopedias
In another direction, I'm interested in the issues we have in citing
online reference works.
(a) We do want permalinks if possible and don't want link rot. It seems
that such works generally do not provide permalinks.
(b) There is the general {{cite web}} template, but it is cumbersome.
There is an "access date" field but that can only be a compromise
solution, if there is no permalink.
(c) For older works that are now in the public domain, the "correct"
solution is to place the material in Wikisource, support it with proof
reading and bibliographic details (including author information) over
there, and link to it via interwiki rather than URL. That is, Wikisource
should be the repository used by default for older material such as
Britannica 1911. We are, though, a long way from even linking to
existing articles there in preference to external links.
(d) Generally, instead of {{cite web}}, each commonly-used external
reference cited should have a dedicated template for linking. Unlike
some other areas, the drive for common standards seems not to have taken
off here.
Charles