The Cunctator wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
I'd say that we should try to stick to important people now, gradually adding the less important as we grow to insane size; this is what I think that we should do in *every* field. We cover the basics first; we eventually cover everything.
As long as you let others have different strategies, then that's great.
Certainly I do, grudgingly though I may do it ^_^. I will argue against including biographies of every 9/11 victim, but I won't argue for removing them Wikipedia (as opposed to removing the eulogies, but that's an NPOV issue of course).
I say that each individual should do what they enjoy and are good at doing; if someone wants to focus on one topic, and make it incredibly precise and comprehensive, then I think that person should do that.
Yes, and I myself am doing that with certain math articles. I do think (as advice, not as anything that should be enforced) that within this topic, the individual shoul start with the basics.
It's important to recognize that we have the law of large numbers on our side; we can have individual goals that are not identical to collective goals.
This is true; while I'm doing many other things on the side here, the reason that I joined was the opportunity that I saw to write a comprehensive mathematics encyclopaedia. That this is incorporated within a general encyclopaedia, allowing for cross references to nonmathematical topics, is a bonus.
-- Toby