On Wed, 2003-04-09 at 13:50, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote: That's an interesting assertion. Especially considering that pretty much all the Wikipedia entries on current events rely on news reports for the informational content. It's certainly true that primary sources are preferable, but we need to be realistic. Finally, the concept that a Wikipedia entry linking to newspaper articles legitimizes the articles as sources of information presupposes an authoritative legitimacy of the Wikipedia entry itself, which one would think would be based on a consideration of the legitimacy of its sources, which are the samesaid newspaper articles.

On 4/11/03 6:19 PM, "Christopher Mahan" <chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com> wrote: It would if the premises were correct. It is true that the point of an encyclopedia is to be authoritative. But it does not follow that encyclopedias do not list references. Most do, in fact. They may call it "further reading" or somesuch, but they're references. Moreover, traditional encyclopedias assert authoritativeness by having known experts write the entries. For example, Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on baseball includes the following "further reading" (written in paragraph form in EB): * Lawrence Ritter and Donald Honig, The Image of Their Greatness: An Illustrated History of Baseball from 1900 to the Present, updated ed. (1984); * Lawrence S. Ritter (comp.), The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It, new ed. (1984). * Robert Peterson, Only the Ball Was White (1970, reprinted 1984). * David Quentin Voigt, Baseball, an Illustrated History (1987) * The Official Baseball Guide, The Sporting News * Official Baseball Register, The Sporting News * Joseph L. Reichler (ed.), The Baseball Encyclopedia, 7th rev. ed. (1988). * Joe Brinkman and Charlie Euchner, The Umpire's Handbook, rev. ed. (1987). * Bill James and John Dewan, Bill James Presents the Great American Baseball Stat Book, ed. by Geoff Beckman et al. (1987) and is written by Jerome Holtzman, "Baseball columnist, Chicago Tribune. Elected to the Writers' Wing, National Baseball Hall of Fame, 1990. Coauthor of Three and Two; editor of No Cheering in the Press Box; Fielder's Choice." Since Wikipedia cannot assert authoritativeness based on the entries being written by experts (that's the Nupedia project, more or less), it can only do so through listing references. References other than newspaper articles should generally be preferred, but they're better than nothing.

--- Christopher Mahan <chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Definitely. Links go bad all the time, especially newspaper links. References without author, title and date are close to useless. Axel __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - File online, calculators, forms, and more http://tax.yahoo.com