On 04.10.2010 20:43, geni wrote:
> The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
> on verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
> in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
> controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
> article:
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulger&oldid=…
People were regularly insisting on references when I started editing
in November 2004. Here's Raul's FA criteria in April 2004 that shows
sources were required.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_criter…
The difference was that we didn't have inline citations, so people
would add a list of refs at the end of the article, and it was hard to
see what supported which point.
Sarah