Gwern Branwen wrote: > On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Charles Matthews > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> quiddity wrote: >> >>> What to do about someone who has "lost the plot"? >>> For example, this editor seems to be going from article to article, >>> deleting every prose paragraph that doesn't have a ref tag (usually >>> everything except the intro sentence). >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&offset=20100125214401&target=JBsupreme >>> Some of the content being removed is obviously not good (selfpromoting >>> peacockery etc), but much is perfectly fine, and this seems to be one >>> of the worst (most indiscriminate) ways to handle the hypothetical >>> problem. >>> >>> >> Suggest that one can drive-by even faster in adding {{fact}}? I think >> this is the first step, the suggestion that identifying unsourced facts >> is a way of achieving a similar end, and that we can all applaud it when >> properly done. >> >> Charles >> > > And where does the {{fact}}-bombing end? > > [[Medici bank]] is as finely referenced an article as I have ever (or > likely will ever) written with 96 footnotes, multiple books & papers > consulted, and extensive quoting - yet the overwhelming majority of > sentences lack <ref> tags and are presumably candidates for bombing. > > Well, I think that in a well-written, well-sourced article people should be still allowed to ask for further references. I foolishly copied the basics of [[List of dissenting academies]] out of a book, thinking it was a cheap article; and so far have added about 120 footnotes and created around 50 articles at Wikisource to support it. Just shows where these things can lead.
I actually had big problems with inline referencing style when it was a hot potato, and I did start putting articles together sentence by sentence. There were reassurances that it was not going to lead to "lame" writing, and I think those were overdone (more precisely, in an area where there is plenty of academic research at book length, you will probably by OK, but that's quite a limitation). OTOH inline referenced writing is now the house style, and actually there are worse things: concision is good, and fact-checked encyclopedia articles are good, and the fact that articles are never finished is a given. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
