[WikiEN-l] Preloading template in new articles

[Ray Saintonge]

Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>This was, in fact, the original intended process for writing articles, no?
>>With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow?  That's the whole concept behind
>>the wiki/open source thing that the project is based on.  References were an
>>afterthought, as indicated by our horrible kludgy support for them.
>>    
>>
>Absolutely - that *was* the whole idea. Unfortunately, that idea
>didn't lead to an encyclopedia people trusted, so now, in order to be
>credible, we have to reference everything. It's unfortunate, but
>unavoidable, I think.
>
I still believe in that original idea, and as far asd I'm concerned it 
still is the whole idea.  I feel secure enough that I don't obsess over 
whether we are trusted.  I do not participate in that monomania where 
absolutely everything needs to be referenced.  I don't feel besieged by 
vandals and spammers, though they do need to be confronted.  I don't 
feel overwhelmed by a multitude of  articles about garage bands and 
other trivia.  Wikipedia is not paper, and with a little less attention 
from their detractors the stubby articles about them will eventually be 
as difficult to find as the bands themselves.  They don't use up a lot 
of server memory.  The need that you see is perfectly avoidable.

Ec