[WikiEN-l] Online Newspapers Considering Subscription Model

[Bod Notbod]

On Sat, Aug 8, 2009 at 12:44 AM, <wjhonson at aol.com> wrote:

> As far as when to remove citations to subscription web-sites and when
> to leave them intact as convenience links, I use the following rule:

I'm sorry, you've completely and utterly confused me... so let's look:

> Part A or 1) *If* the article lives exclusively online, then it gets
> removed. We should not be requiring or pandering for, commercial
> activity, we as verifiers should have a choice in the matter.  There
> must always be a "free" alternative of some sort.

But many articles could live exclusively online AND be free (free to
WP readers, the advertiser is paying).

> Part Deux) *If* there is a hard-copy version of the article, and your
> citation to the online version is verbose enough that a normally
> intelligent person could locate the item in a library, then it can stay.

But the verbosity could be a trick. I'll pretend you didn't say
verbosity. I'll pretend you said "specified". But I think we hit a
very big problem here. It's one thing to patrol Recent Changes. It's
quite another to print out "referenced" edits from the last 5 minutes
at Recent Changes and... well, good luck trying to find all the
material: and when you *have* there will have been another 30,000
items in Recent Changes.

> Part Final Bit) *If* your citation to the online article, is so limited
> in content that no one could find the article except by following your
> link.. then it gets removed.

WHAT!?

What's WRONG with finding the material at the link!? Provided it's a
Reliable Source?

> I am vicious and exacting I know.  We should be setting the bar for
> others to follow, not being lazy in citation practice.

Weird. I think I'm far from lazy. But I can't understand your
methodology at all. I think I must be grossly misunderstanding what
you're saying, because I have no doubt that you're - like me - trying
to do everything for the best. But I can't follow your logic.