At 03:47 AM 6/19/2007, David Goodman wrote:
About 25% of the WP articles cannot be properly sourced
without access
to one of the about 250 existing research libraries (in the
english-speaking world), and perhaps a third of those can be done in
only one of the top half of those, the ones with high quality pint
collections. Most WPedians clearly do not have such access, and most
of those who do are clearly unaccustomed to using it for such
purposes. Those who can do this, are not likely to assume the burden
of sourcing a few hundred thosand articles in 5 days.
And it is not just finding sources. It is necessary to find multiple
sources in a thorough way, and see what part of the article can be
supported, and then do the secondary research necessary to rewrite the
article. How many WP editors know how to do this properly? How many of
the enthusiasts working on popular culture actually know how to do an
adequate job filling the gaps there?
Right, but I would argue access and skill are not the issue... we
have plenty of editors near libraries, and most of them are pretty
smart folks, too. The issue is simply that it's a huge amount of
work. Writing a good, medium-length article takes a couple of days
maybe if you are familiar with the topic. Looking up all the
references in a library is going to take weeks.
Chris