Chris Lüer wrote:
At 06:17 PM 10/28/2006, Sam Korn wrote:
- We are getting more rigid about demanding sources/citations for new
material. This is necessary. I expect most academics who contribute, being used to being judged by their qualifications/reputation, will not cite and reference their work in the way Wikipedia demands.
Giving references is the one thing about writing an encyclopedia article that academics are used to.
That's true, but it depends somewhat on the context. When writing textbooks or tutorial material, often references are left out, and instead the correctness of the material relies on the authority of the writer. References creep in more and more as the material gets more and more like research---graduate-level advanced textbooks have more references than intro textbooks, and monographs reporting novel results have even more.
It may just require some gentle acclimation into the Wikipedia culture---academics may be perfectly capable of providing references at will, but simply not know that Wikipedia would prefer references even for intro-level material that's commonly known in the field.
-Mark