[WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

[Phil Sandifer]

On Feb 27, 2007, at 5:19 AM, John Lee wrote:


>
> The trouble I have with the citation fetish is that it goes  
> overboard. For
> example, let's say that I have two or three core sources for an  
> article -
> webpages written by published and respected authors and experts in the
> field. Does it make sense to cite these pages for every little  
> detail in the
> article, or does it make sense to collate them in one section  
> titled as
> references? I would argue that it is the latter that matters, but  
> the inline
> citation fetishists have succeeded in making the typical reading of  
> our
> guidelines closer to the former. As Phil (I think) noted not too  
> long ago,
> one article even has a footnote for the name of the article's  
> subject! This
> only makes sense if the name is a disputable/unique detail (e.g.  
> [[Jeff
> Ooi]] is always known as Jeff Ooi to most Malaysians, but his legal  
> name is
> Ooi Chuan Aun, so it makes sense to provide a citation for the  
> latter in the
> lead).

I think we need to distinguish among three tiers of information.

1) Needs a citation
2) Would be nice if it had a citation
3) Doesn't need a citation.

Remove all of #1 that lacks a citation. Leave #2 and #3 alone, adding  
them if you have them handy. But it's non-essential.

-Phil