On 1/25/07, Bogdan Giusca liste@dapyx.com wrote:
Thursday, January 25, 2007, 10:00:34 PM, George wrote:
Wikipedia is not the fact-based encyclopedia project you're demanding. It can never be, because it's not structured that way in a semantic or knowledge flow manner. Attempting to force Wikipedia into that model will blow up your mind and our project. Please stop.
What's wrong with adding a reference after each sentence?
Hoping that your mind won't blow, here's a very well-sourced example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_general_election%2C_1946
Wikipedia's purpose, as said by Jimbo, is not to be a wiki, not to be a community, but to simply create an encyclopedia. The rest are simply means towards a goal.
That's a terrible article. It's not an encyclopedia article, it's a scholarly paper on the topic.
It's not a bad scholarly paper, on first look, but it's not a good encyclopedia article.
Killing our project here and now by turning it into Nupedia makes no sense. If their model works, then perhaps we should all go work over there. If it doesn't then leave the WP model alone...
Maybe you are the one on the wrong encyclopedia: Wikipedia requires verifiability as an official policy.
The third sentence is: "Editors should provide a reliable source for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed."
That is not "cite every single fact", that is "provide a reliable source for anything that people aren't likely to believe by themselves". Providing good references and citations for the rest of it is covered elsewhere but less forcefully.