We can expect our editors to use libraries. (And if you
can't or don't want to work that way, there's an immense amount to write on
WP. There's
a great many topics--academic topics even--that can best be written with
available
Internet sources. )
Is your goal to produce a WP useful for 2006, or 1996? It would be very
interesting to
deliberately invent an encyclopedia appropriate for some specific earlier
historical period,
but many of the users may be more interested in the present.
On 10/25/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
David Goodman wrote:
and textbooks are not reference material. Most
libraries discard them
when the next edition comes out (or keep one edition back). Libraries
with
immense amounts of storage space put one copy in
storage & throw out the others.
(Nor should old textbooks be cited on WP except for historical interest).
"In the 80s, this book was universally used & is therefore of
significance
in the development of ..."
This last bit is not realistic. While it is still preferable to cite
the most recent edition, the fact is that people cite the edition that
is available to them. We cannot require people to go out and buy the
most recent edition before contributing. It's up to subsequent editors
to update the information if they have something more recent.
Ec
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David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.