[WikiEN-l] Gosh darn it, those spammers^Wmarketers will show us what for

[Steve Bennett]

On 1/25/07, Geoffrey Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> Three or four years ago, Jimbo ranted about all of the external links he
> was finding in articles. IIRC, his point was that we didn't need any external
> links, that a Wikipedia article ought to stand on its own, and be better
> than any other website on the subject.

It's a value trade-off. For many stubs, there's already a perfect
article out there on the subject. Linking to it is great. What's the
additional value in spending hundreds of hours trying to get that one
obscure article up to the same quality?

Have a look at [[Club skifield]] (which I wrote). Follow the external
link. Is it really worth our (my) while attempting to write something
that surpasses the link in terms of quality, depth, comprehensiveness
of coverage? Practically speaking, who is going to be reading
Wikipedia that doesn't have access to the net, but needs that
information?

Steve