On 04/10/06, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
I would strongly argue that we need far, far *less* references than the Encyclopedia Britannica due to the hypertext linking in the wikipedia. What hypertexting means is that the references tend to get pushed down to daughter nodes on particular topics, and you end up with summary articles with few references that internally refer to other articles. In Brittanica I bet that the references are duplicated throughout the Encyclopedia giving an artificially high reference count. We need to get away from encyclopedia envy and do the right things for the wikipedia.
Hmmmm. Articles get refactored a *lot* around here, though. I've put the same reference in several articles as needed on the principle that more good references are better than not enough, and we can't presume an article will be viewed as part of Wikipedia. I've turned [[Xenu]] into a handbill, for instance, and been very glad the references were *right there*. Mind you, that article needs to be referenced to the hilt for the sheer "wtf" factor, but anyway.
Semi-tangentially, I'm wondering how to properly reference [[Fork (software)]]. It's at about a 2003 or 2004 level of quality - "everyone in the field knows this stuff" - but needs more for 2006.
- d.