On 2/27/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
I don't see why we would look foolish for having good historical coverage. If a field was *ever* of enough note to have multiple reliable sources we can cite, then we ought to cover it, and that will still be true 15 and 150 years from now. The solution to imbalanced coverage between present-day and older stuff is not to reduce our generally thorough coverage of present-day stuff, but to greatly improve our much sparser coverage of anything older than 50 years. Was there some field of study that was briefly popular in 1830 but faded to insignificance by 1845? If anyone's written anything reliable about it that we can cite, then I'd like to be able to read an article on the subject.
That's a valid point. I am concerned, however, that people will write stuff in the heat of the moment and not go back and revise with the benefit of hindsight.
Adam