| Revision as of 20:20, 27 November 2010 editRjensen (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, File movers, Pending changes reviewers, Rollbackers227,294 edits →Further reading: suggest one-three citations per 1000 words for history articles← Previous edit | Revision as of 23:57, 27 November 2010 edit undoVsevolodKrolikov (talk | contribs)Pending changes reviewers5,238 edits →Further reading: WBB is not being entirely clear on he's doing - my own recommendations for Further Reading guidelinesNext edit → | ||
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| {{outdent}} I am now coming by this Manual of style talk page section after seeing a discussion on the talk page of a thoughtful editor about the rationale for and usefulness of further reading sections in Misplaced Pages articles. Most professionally edited encyclopedias have further reading references at the end of their articles. That seems to be a general characteristic of many of the subject-specialized encyclopedias that are acquired by academic libraries. Take a look around in the academic library reference section nearest you and see how many specialty encyclopedia sets you find. Then look at the articles, and observe how often an encyclopedia article in a dead-tree encyclopedia has a bibliography at the end of the article suggesting books readers could read for more information on the subject. The Misplaced Pages Manual of style ] makes clear enough that this has been routine practice on Misplaced Pages for years as well. What I try to do when editing further reading sections is to put well researched, meticulously edited references into them as I discover those references, and then eventually (sometimes many months later) dig into those sections for sources for further edits of article text. Most of the {{numberofarticles}} articles on Misplaced Pages need a lot more editing, but as far as I know most of us few thousand active editors are volunteers who are either working or studying full-time besides editing Misplaced Pages, so it's not surprising that not every possible edit is done at once. Listing a further reading source with an article, as long as it is a well chosen source, has immediate usefulness to every reader of the article (and some articles have hundreds of page views a day even while they languish with no edits for weeks at a time), and it has lasting usefulness to any other editor who surfs by and thinks "I could improve this article if only I knew of a source on this topic." On my part, now that I have gathered ] published by major commercial or academic publishers, purchased by major academic or public library systems, I simply don't have time simultaneously to edit all of the hundreds of Misplaced Pages articles that could be edited on the basis of those sources. I have my particular priority list of articles to edit on my volunteer time between work and family responsibilities. It may be that other editors have fewer means for finding such sources, but more time to ''use'' such sources once someone else finds them, so that if one editor shares a reference to a source or sources in an article further reading section, then other editors can use their volunteer time productively updating the articles based on current, reliable sources. Division of labor helps everyone get more work done more efficiently. I have seen instances of further reading sections being spammed for political or commercial purposes, and I boldly delete sources from such further reading sections (which, fortunately, are not commonplace) if I find them. The main thing is to keep looking for ] all the time that have usefulness for follow-up reading by readers of Misplaced Pages and eventually usefulness for editors editing Misplaced Pages. -- ] (], ]) 19:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC) | {{outdent}} I am now coming by this Manual of style talk page section after seeing a discussion on the talk page of a thoughtful editor about the rationale for and usefulness of further reading sections in Misplaced Pages articles. Most professionally edited encyclopedias have further reading references at the end of their articles. That seems to be a general characteristic of many of the subject-specialized encyclopedias that are acquired by academic libraries. Take a look around in the academic library reference section nearest you and see how many specialty encyclopedia sets you find. Then look at the articles, and observe how often an encyclopedia article in a dead-tree encyclopedia has a bibliography at the end of the article suggesting books readers could read for more information on the subject. The Misplaced Pages Manual of style ] makes clear enough that this has been routine practice on Misplaced Pages for years as well. What I try to do when editing further reading sections is to put well researched, meticulously edited references into them as I discover those references, and then eventually (sometimes many months later) dig into those sections for sources for further edits of article text. Most of the {{numberofarticles}} articles on Misplaced Pages need a lot more editing, but as far as I know most of us few thousand active editors are volunteers who are either working or studying full-time besides editing Misplaced Pages, so it's not surprising that not every possible edit is done at once. Listing a further reading source with an article, as long as it is a well chosen source, has immediate usefulness to every reader of the article (and some articles have hundreds of page views a day even while they languish with no edits for weeks at a time), and it has lasting usefulness to any other editor who surfs by and thinks "I could improve this article if only I knew of a source on this topic." On my part, now that I have gathered ] published by major commercial or academic publishers, purchased by major academic or public library systems, I simply don't have time simultaneously to edit all of the hundreds of Misplaced Pages articles that could be edited on the basis of those sources. I have my particular priority list of articles to edit on my volunteer time between work and family responsibilities. It may be that other editors have fewer means for finding such sources, but more time to ''use'' such sources once someone else finds them, so that if one editor shares a reference to a source or sources in an article further reading section, then other editors can use their volunteer time productively updating the articles based on current, reliable sources. Division of labor helps everyone get more work done more efficiently. I have seen instances of further reading sections being spammed for political or commercial purposes, and I boldly delete sources from such further reading sections (which, fortunately, are not commonplace) if I find them. The main thing is to keep looking for ] all the time that have usefulness for follow-up reading by readers of Misplaced Pages and eventually usefulness for editors editing Misplaced Pages. -- ] (], ]) 19:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC) | ||
| ::WeijiBaikeBianji has said it very well. One problem with this discussion is the contributors have very different pictures in their minds of the articles we are talking about. Just to limit the discussion to history, most history topics have only a few RS--maybe 2 or 3--and usually they will be the sources used by the editors to write the article and so be included already in the footnotes. As a rule of thumb for history articles, let me suggest one to three "Further reading" citations per 1000 words. That way, the great majority of history articles will have three or fewer suggested readings, while the long complex articles will have one or two suggested readings per articles section. other fields, such as the sciences, may well have an entirely different guideline.] (]) 20:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC) | ::WeijiBaikeBianji has said it very well. One problem with this discussion is the contributors have very different pictures in their minds of the articles we are talking about. Just to limit the discussion to history, most history topics have only a few RS--maybe 2 or 3--and usually they will be the sources used by the editors to write the article and so be included already in the footnotes. As a rule of thumb for history articles, let me suggest one to three "Further reading" citations per 1000 words. That way, the great majority of history articles will have three or fewer suggested readings, while the long complex articles will have one or two suggested readings per articles section. other fields, such as the sciences, may well have an entirely different guideline.] (]) 20:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC) | ||
| ::: (A bit of context: WBB has actually been using further reading sections as a dumping ground for material he hasn't read yet and thinks should be used for sourcing. This includes books which mention the topic only a handful of times across several hundred pages, and causes some BLP concerns.) If there is to be a further reading section, guidelines should be clear that any editions should be centrally about the article topic. If it is a person, it should be a biography ''of that person''. If it is about a subject, it should be a good introduction to the subject - a good place to start - not just any old book on the topic. It should not be a place to suggest extra sources for the text, which is precisely, by his own admission, is how WBB is explicitly using the section.] (]) 23:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC) | |||
| == Separate 'Notes' and 'References' sections == | == Separate 'Notes' and 'References' sections == | ||
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Significant change to Further reading
Where is the consensus for this change? I'm starting to see users place the reference sources under "Further reading", which previously explicitly prohibited it. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
- I don't agree with that change. Further reading has historically been for sources that aren't used in the article. Having sources that are used mixed in with those that aren't make it difficult at a quick glance to judge the quality of the sourcing used in the article. Karanacs (talk) 17:39, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
- I've reverted most of the change. Consensus supports non-duplication (under normal circumstances). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
- Note that "further reading" is entirely external to Misplaced Pages. Not sure why it merits a separate section from any of the other externals. Student7 (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- I have prepared a lot of material for "further reading" and think of it as an integral part of the text. The material is prepared by editors while writing the article. For example the books chosen often expand on ideas or people mentioned briefly in the article. External links are very different--they were prepared by non-editors who had other goals in mind; that is, those outsiders did not design their stuff as a supplement to the Wiki article.Rjensen (talk) 00:50, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Note that "further reading" is entirely external to Misplaced Pages. Not sure why it merits a separate section from any of the other externals. Student7 (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Everyone who changes a Misplaced Pages article is an "editor." So be careful of wp:OWN. That said, some editors are definitely more dedicated to the quality of article content than others, and you are clearly one of the former. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:59, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Rjensen, I see that some of the articles you've worked on have remarkably lengthy Further reading sections. However, your complaint about websites ("prepared by non-Wikipedians who had other goals in mind") is exactly as true about the dozens of books you list: They were none of them written by Wikipedians, and their authors didn't have Misplaced Pages in mind, and they didn't write their books as supplements to the Misplaced Pages article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Most of my Wiki contributions are to history articles. The selection process is part of writing the article. I would say that I reject 10 books for every one hat makes the cut and is recommended to Wiki users in the Further Reading; I usually know something about the book already or else I check its reviews before listing it. In every case it is a title I can recommend as a RS. The selection is based on the thrust of the Wiki article (e.g. pay more attention to books on topics that the article covers in greater detail). I try to tailor the list to the needs of the Wiki users. (four examples: 1) I give priority to books & articles that are entirely or partly online, such as JSTOR or Amazon or books.google. 2) I pay more attention to the best RS and avoid popular stuff that is not as reliable--if it is popular I annotate it that way; 3) annotations tell something to help the user who might want to order it inter-library loan; 4) I like to recommend recent reference books that will help the user explore more widely and which are likely held by college libraries). It's like when an editor chooses an illustration--these were not created by editors but they are an integral part of the article because the editor selected them to match the content of the article & meet the needs of Wiki users. Rjensen (talk) 02:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- The only significant difference between "Further reading" and "External links" is that the former is printed works, the latter is internet sites. The important difference between these and the references is that the references are a complete list of the works (whether printed or online) from which facts were obtained when writing the article; by contrast, nothing was drawn from the FR/EL works. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- When the editors contribute to an article they draw from lots of sources that never make the footnotes. (That's obvious in the many many articles that have few or no footnotes.) Rjensen (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- The only significant difference between "Further reading" and "External links" is that the former is printed works, the latter is internet sites. The important difference between these and the references is that the references are a complete list of the works (whether printed or online) from which facts were obtained when writing the article; by contrast, nothing was drawn from the FR/EL works. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Most of my Wiki contributions are to history articles. The selection process is part of writing the article. I would say that I reject 10 books for every one hat makes the cut and is recommended to Wiki users in the Further Reading; I usually know something about the book already or else I check its reviews before listing it. In every case it is a title I can recommend as a RS. The selection is based on the thrust of the Wiki article (e.g. pay more attention to books on topics that the article covers in greater detail). I try to tailor the list to the needs of the Wiki users. (four examples: 1) I give priority to books & articles that are entirely or partly online, such as JSTOR or Amazon or books.google. 2) I pay more attention to the best RS and avoid popular stuff that is not as reliable--if it is popular I annotate it that way; 3) annotations tell something to help the user who might want to order it inter-library loan; 4) I like to recommend recent reference books that will help the user explore more widely and which are likely held by college libraries). It's like when an editor chooses an illustration--these were not created by editors but they are an integral part of the article because the editor selected them to match the content of the article & meet the needs of Wiki users. Rjensen (talk) 02:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- Rjensen, I see that some of the articles you've worked on have remarkably lengthy Further reading sections. However, your complaint about websites ("prepared by non-Wikipedians who had other goals in mind") is exactly as true about the dozens of books you list: They were none of them written by Wikipedians, and their authors didn't have Misplaced Pages in mind, and they didn't write their books as supplements to the Misplaced Pages article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
- A separate issue is new articles with "references" at the bottom from which the article, hopefully a stub, is drawn. We try to make allowances for poorly cited material for new articles hoping it will be supplemented "soon."
- But the difference between hard and soft copies, aside from ease of assessiblity, is getting a bit blurry. I don't mind having them in a separate list just to avoid the confusion of comingling print with virtual, but establishing a second level subtitle for each of them, seems a bit much. IMO they should both be demoted to third level under "externals" since neither of them are Misplaced Pages-based. A matter of style.Student7 (talk) 13:12, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I think that this conversation has drifted from Redrose64's initial comments. I see "Further reading" as a convenient halfway house, for references that are no longer in an article but may go back in, or for books or articles that may be useful for expanding an article. But I don't think that usually sources in the Reference section should appear in further reading. Indeed one of the processes I go through when improving articles which do not have a separate "References" and "Further reading" sections is to see if there are books in the References section that are not cited in the footnotes. If not I look back through the history and if the book was added to References section without an addition to the text of the article by the editor who added the book, I move it into "Further reading". This helps clarify what was and was not used as a reference to write the article. Doing that helps any reader to know what was used to compile the article and it is of great help for any editor who wants to improve the article by adding inline citations from the sources in the reference section. It is misleading for our readers if say one source was used to write an article (eg text copied from 11th edition of EB) but half a dozen article are listed in the References section.
Personally I don't like external links sections because I think all sources at the bottom of an article should be formatted as if they were in the References section (with author, title, publisher, date etc). I think external links should be reserved for non text entries such as pictures and vidio clips etc. -- PBS (talk) 13:16, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
- Your limitation makes sense. Right now, I am usually forced to allow just about anything in the externals that someone wants to slam in there. I can't easily check hard copy. I try to exclude WP:SPAM. That is pretty much it. I am greatly relieved when someone boldly erases all the externals claiming (usually correctly) that the list has grown too long. It is nearly impossible to use an unstructured list longer than ten items. By "unstructured" here I mean no subheader like "History:" or "Museums:" or whatever to help direct a new reasder. Student7 (talk) 19:25, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- You don't have to accept everything. Check WP:ELNO, and remove those that fall foul, leaving an edit summary like "removed per ]". If they then complain that one of those removed was a source for the article text, point them at WP:CITE. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- One of the keys points of this particular edit linked at the very beginning has been missed: the idea of adding commentary on each of the further reading listings. My concern for this rather unprecedented move is that it automatically violates WP:OR or WP:NPOV to allow editors to "assess" or "sum up" these works... Granted, listing anything already is a form of assessment... --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- agreed that OR is unwise. What the editors should do is summarize the consensus of RS regarding the item (such as the book reviews). That of course is always the main job of the editor, summarizing the RS. Most annotations are of the form "this book covers the 1820-1840 period with an emphasis on diplomacy and is 220 pages long".Rjensen (talk) 15:30, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- One of the keys points of this particular edit linked at the very beginning has been missed: the idea of adding commentary on each of the further reading listings. My concern for this rather unprecedented move is that it automatically violates WP:OR or WP:NPOV to allow editors to "assess" or "sum up" these works... Granted, listing anything already is a form of assessment... --Midnightdreary (talk) 15:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
- You don't have to accept everything. Check WP:ELNO, and remove those that fall foul, leaving an edit summary like "removed per ]". If they then complain that one of those removed was a source for the article text, point them at WP:CITE. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- I like the above suggestion about summarizing! It is valid amd provides communication that is now lacking. Someone using the refenence is eventually going to get back and say "this ref doesn't say that at all!" allowing us to remove it. Right now there is no mechanism for removing mediocre referemces.
- As a practical matter, I watch Vermont. Glance at Vermont#Bibliography. I can't really maintain this thing. I know I would keep Ira Allen, a history from the 19th century, suspect Coffin book is a classic. But what to make of Duffy, Doyle, Rodgers? They may be good books but are they all 'that classic? I don't need explicit help here, just trying to illustrate the problem, which could be solved in the long run by implementing Rjensen's suggestion. Worth thinking about. Student7 (talk) 20:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
External links and Wiktionary
I have restored the wording about Wiktionary and Wikisource. These two projects were started as spin-offs from this project, to remove certain type of articles from the encyclopaedia, and as such it is quite common for links to words and works to appear in the text where appropriate.
As a general rule we do not write articles on words, so if there is a word which an editor thinks may for some reason not be familiar to a general audience, they will link to to the that word in Wiktionary in the text for example the phrase "seised in fee" or "pettah" are not ones that most people would know, but they do not qualify for an articles, but it would be silly to insist that links to the words should be placed in the external links section of the article. If I do not know what a word means I do not go to the external links section of an article to see if a link to it has been placed there!
Similarly there are times when links to wikisource makes sense, for example if there is an article discussing the legal issues of mercenary soldiers it might be desirable to place a convince link for our readers to Article 47 of Protocol I in the text of the article, as it saves cluttering up an article with a quote of the text from Wikisource in the encyclopaedia article which was the reason for creating Wikisoure in the first place. -- PBS (talk) 12:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
- Seems appropriate. Most editors are not aware of which projects are "sister" and which projects merely have "wiki" in front of it. These editors automatically assume (for place names, for example) that WikiTravel must be inserted. I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds of others using wiki formats. Is there any way to suggest that these might be better screened before inserting "automatically?" Normally I hate negative assertioms, but I wouldn't mind one here! :) Student7 (talk) 19:15, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
- Actually i'm not really convinced that this is a good idea. Spinoff or not wiktionary and wikisource are external projects from logical point of view, since their content, rules, regulations and ultimately reliability are not controlled by the wikipedia community. Hence they should be treated like other external links or sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:15, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry but that is not how it works, as you are free to log onto those other sites and fix any errors you come across (your account is/can be shared across the project (see Special:MergeAccount). Have you done any work on the other projects because I find that the ones I work on have similar levels of quality checking to this project. Your logic would lead to all images from commons being placed at the bottom of the article because wikicommons is an "external projects from logical point of view, since their content, rules, regulations and ultimately reliability are not controlled by the wikipedia community." -- PBS (talk) 00:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what you mean by that's not how it works. Are you telling me Wikitionary and Wikisource are not separated from WP? I agree however that Commons is the one exception here, it is true that Commons is logically separated as well, but contrary to the other wikimedia projects it was explicitly set up as a shared media repository and hence its material is not a link as the cases above but it is directly displayed with the WP article.
- Btw i'm not arguing the quality of Wiktionary or Wikisource is necessarily inferior, just that that it is not controlled by the WP community due to the logical separation. We do not link to other (logically) external projects either, just because we are convinced their quality is alright. As far as wiktionary is concerned however, to my (limited) experience it is far less sourced than WP for instance.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- PBS is saying that the official Wikimedia Foundation projects (our "sister projects") all get treated distinctly differently than any other worldwideweb site. E.g. we use {{wikt}} to link to a Wiktionary page as soon as it exists - it does not have to meet any kind of "better than a stub" type of quality standards.
- This is partially due to Misplaced Pages:Unified login, and the shared communities and principles, but also for a variety of other reasons that I won't attempt to summarize here. If you wish to challenge that premise&practice, then this isn't a good location to do so; I'd recommend the Village Pump, or WT:MOS, or Misplaced Pages talk:Wikimedia sister projects, or somewhere on meta.
- Just because we're the biggest of the sister-projects, doesn't mean we get to treat the others poorly. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see how treating them as logically external project is treating them poorly. It just reflects that there separate projects with their own specific goals, rules, standards and authors/communities. Also this question is merely about whether they should be used as Interwiki links in wikipedia and not whether they should be treated as external sources in other regards.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- I can appreciate your concern, but these are "sister" projects, not merely "some wikilink" project for which some unknown entity is using similar grammar. They are trustworthy. See Wikimedia Foundation. Student7 (talk) 13:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, they are not "trustworthy"; they are Wikis, hence not reliable, and they should be used very sparingly, if at all, in text (except for images). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- SandyGeorgia beat me to it here. See WP:SELFPUB. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:47, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- No, they are not "trustworthy"; they are Wikis, hence not reliable, and they should be used very sparingly, if at all, in text (except for images). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry but that is not how it works, as you are free to log onto those other sites and fix any errors you come across (your account is/can be shared across the project (see Special:MergeAccount). Have you done any work on the other projects because I find that the ones I work on have similar levels of quality checking to this project. Your logic would lead to all images from commons being placed at the bottom of the article because wikicommons is an "external projects from logical point of view, since their content, rules, regulations and ultimately reliability are not controlled by the wikipedia community." -- PBS (talk) 00:50, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- For those of you who do not know SandyGeorgia and I disagree on this issue before. Sandy by you logic we should not link to other wikipeida articles because they are not reliable! This is not citing them as reliable sources, it is about linking to them as we do to Misplaced Pages articles. Why do you make a distinction between commons and other sister projects? Wtmitchell what has WP:SELFPUB got to do with it? -- PBS (talk) 04:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- So what Sandy Georgia is saying is that Wikicommons (only) is reliable outside of English Misplaced Pages? (And of course, we are using Misplaced Pages as links, not footnotes).
- I have used Wiktionary for years. Seems accurate but seems to be missing the transparency of construction that we have here. Don't know where the stuff comes from. And it's hard for me to get excited about Wikinews since they are so blasted breathless there. I would cheerfully ignore it! So I could be convinced. But we need a statement one way or the other someplace in the policies. Wikimedia Foundation is hardly a policy but it does establish, er, brotherhood, I think. Student7 (talk) 19:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
@PBS (and @Student7 partially as well): You are correct in doubting SandyGeorgia's argument, in fact there are 2 or actually 3 different issues getting mixed here namely:
- a) links as interlinks within the article's text
- b) links as sources (in footnotes, references)
- c) links to external urls being of some interest in connection with the articles topic (external link section)
SandyGeorgia's was making a correct argument about b) (wiktionary is no source), however the argument here is about a).
Nevertheless as far as a) is concerned it has been a (long) established practice that interlinking should remain within wikipedia and that links outside WP are placed under references/footnotes if used as sourced or under external links otherwise. Note that all other Wikimedia project are sister projects but they are still logically separated projects and in that sense external. Note that the unified login doesn't change that all, these WM projects still have their own local login administration, but more importantly their own community, authors, goal, rules and practices and though there is an a considerable overlap they are by no means identical. The difference between commons and another WM projects (including WP itself) is, that Commons is designed as shared multimedia repository and it usually provides mulitmedia material as content and not as interlinks to WP.
So why shouldn't we link to (logically) external projects, well because the WP community does not control external projects (even if they are within the WM foundation) and to provide a uniform behaviour (interface to users, all interlinks stay within WP). As far as the quality argument is concerned Wiktionary is not a reputable source, so from the quality aspect you probably would better link to other external projects like dictionary.com or various publically available "authoritative" dictionaries. Also I hardly see any practical reason to have interlinks to Wikitionary, since we don't want to turn WP articles into a blue landscape by linking somewhat regular vocabulary and as far as technical terms or most very particular words, which you usually want to link, are concerned, they could/should have their own WP article anyhow.
Also note that this has nothing to do with WP being superior or better than other WM projects, it is merely a question of logical separation and uniform linking behaviour.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Let's take Wiktionary by itself. My prime non-Misplaced Pages site. 1) there are words that may not be understood by everyone or are obscure that don't have articles and never will. The article would be just too small. The explanation of the word would distract from the article. Particularly since the majority of people might understand it. There seems to be a hole here since Wiktionary is off limits. 2) There is a template:Wiktionary. Seems to me that this shouldn't exist if links are truly not allowed. 3) Wikimedia projects should be explicity disallowed since they have sometimes been used in the past and anyone can make that same mistake. Student7 (talk) 12:39, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
"Reception" section
WP:ELMAYBE says "Professional reviews should ... be used as sources in a "Reception" section." Is this something we should be saying on this page as well? Or, because the Reception section is part of the body of an article, is it not for us to mention? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
Further reading
I wish to propose a radical change to Misplaced Pages. I think we should delete the further reading sections of articles. There does not see to be any point to them. If the links or books were not used as sources, then all it is is advertising. If people want to find more information on a subject then they can look on their local library catalogue or something. Besides, the goal of Misplaced Pages, in Jimbo's words, is to be the source of all human knowledge. If there is any more interesting and relevant information on subject, then it should be included in an article, which makes a further reading section pointless and just a place for people to list their own websites on a topic. What are other people's thoughts on this? McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 11:45, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
- You are proposing a "nuclear option" solution. An issue must be significantly harmful before that solution is warranted. If individual articles have problems, then either clean them up, or list them here specifically so that we can have a less abstract discussion.
- There are a number of Featured Articles that have "Further reading" sections (eg the recently promoted articles Tosca and Cotswold Olimpick Games and Tarrare and Sentence spacing), and proposing to just delete them all, because some other articles contain inappropriate content, is not a positive move.
- See also, Template:Further reading cleanup (63 articles currently tagged), and a number of relevant threads in Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (layout)/Archive 6. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:22, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
- I am in favor of deleting "Further reading." It seems pretentious to me anyway. And a bit incoherent. "I can't explain to you what you really wanted to know. You are too stupid - you'll have to read this book."
- It is incapable of being edited (scrutinized by other editors). If you add something that isn't relevant, I have no idea, nor does anyone else. Edit-ability ought to be considered here.
- Readers eyes glaze after a few entries anyway. Anything "over ten" I would guess, but since I can't really check entries anyway, why have any? Student7 (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
- I don't see that as a valid argument: they are just as capable of being checked as those print sources which are cited among the references. The refs section of a recent TFA has "over ten" books among the references; this is surely just as likely to cause readers' eyes to glaze over? --Redrose64 (talk) 20:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
- Readers eyes glaze after a few entries anyway. Anything "over ten" I would guess, but since I can't really check entries anyway, why have any? Student7 (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
- Student7, what's wrong with you that you can't read hard copy? Don't they have libraries where you live? Does your firewall prohibit Google books and bookseller websites? Or when you said, "I can't really check", did you mean "I can't really be bothered to check"?
- I find your assertion that it's impossible to check on these entries distinctly unimpressive, but even if it were true, it wouldn't matter: Misplaced Pages needs someone to be able to check these entries, not every single editor.
- I have seen a few good uses for ==Further reading==, including providing full citations for documents that are mentioned in the text (e.g., "Smith's 1905 publication scandalized the country..."), but not cited directly. I see no reason to prohibit them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
- If it says "Smith's 1905 publication scandalised the country" then you have to reference Smith's 1905 publication, so it needs to be included in references rather than further reading. If there is any information in a book that is interesting and relevant to the topic it should be included in the article, if not, then don't mention it. The Further reading section is completely pointless. There is no reason to promote other people's works that weren't used in the article, surely that's in violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING. According to that, external links to relevant organisations and companies are fine, but it doesn't mention random books on the topic that someone found interesting. There are plenty of websites that provide good lists of books on a particular subject; Misplaced Pages does not need to be one of those sites. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
- If information is given, then yes it should be referenced. But that is not what "Further reading" is about. We can't drag every single fact from every single relevant book, because if we did, we would surely be in breach of copyright. After all, we're not here to write the definitive account - professional authors do that; what we should be doing is stimulating peoples interest so that they can then go and read the definitive account written by one or another of these professionals.
- If I were a professional author, and I found that a book that I had written had had the bulk of its content taken, rearranged and made available on the free Internet - I would be contacting a solicitor specialising in copyright law. --Redrose64 (talk) 12:58, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
- Yes: A claim that a publication scandalized the country should be referenced.
- No: A claim that a publication scandalized the country should not be referenced to the original primary source. You cannot cite "Smith 1905" to support a statement about the reaction to Smith 1905. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- If it says "Smith's 1905 publication scandalised the country" then you have to reference Smith's 1905 publication, so it needs to be included in references rather than further reading. If there is any information in a book that is interesting and relevant to the topic it should be included in the article, if not, then don't mention it. The Further reading section is completely pointless. There is no reason to promote other people's works that weren't used in the article, surely that's in violation of WP:NOTADVERTISING. According to that, external links to relevant organisations and companies are fine, but it doesn't mention random books on the topic that someone found interesting. There are plenty of websites that provide good lists of books on a particular subject; Misplaced Pages does not need to be one of those sites. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 01:48, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
- This is why Misplaced Pages fails at its mission to be the source of all human knowledge – because people are so concerned with being concise and not including too much information. In my opinion, we should include every fact from every book. As long as you re-write something in your own words and reference it, you cannot breach copyright. No one can copyright information. McLerristarr (Mclay1) (talk) 05:53, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- RedRose is correct in stating that a list of external references appear as "valid" as an embedded print reference. The problem (in part) is credibility. Text "shows up" with an appended ref. I may be familiar with the item (or disinterested) and often don't check. But what to do when 5-10 external print refs "show up" in a list someplace? I don't know why they just showed up. Did someone just think of it? Got homework from some professor and decide to insert every one s/he was given? What was the point? Are they all valid and important or just some joke by a wayward vandal?
- I have no idea nor any easy way to check. I don't have infinite checking capabilities. And no, like most people in the US, I do not edit in a well-stocked library. Anyway, going to a shelf and pulling down some book to ascertain whether it should stay on some list, seems a bit beyond most of our editing capability. Therefore, the lists are not usually scrutinized. Junk stays on there sometimes for years until someone actually uses a book and discovers it shouldn't have been on there in the first place! Student7 (talk) 19:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- However, the same goes for inline-ref print citations. If you aren't verifying them, then hopefully someone else is.
- This is why we need humans to write the encyclopedia. It requires judgement and decision, an understanding of context, and large quantities of caffeine. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:57, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- I have no idea nor any easy way to check. I don't have infinite checking capabilities. And no, like most people in the US, I do not edit in a well-stocked library. Anyway, going to a shelf and pulling down some book to ascertain whether it should stay on some list, seems a bit beyond most of our editing capability. Therefore, the lists are not usually scrutinized. Junk stays on there sometimes for years until someone actually uses a book and discovers it shouldn't have been on there in the first place! Student7 (talk) 19:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
- I think fthe further-reading and external-links sections fulfil a useful function, but when I look at articles like Morgenthau Plan I think more quantitaive guidance at WP:Further reading might be appropriate.--Boson (talk) 23:28, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
McLerristarr (Mclay1) you wrote above "If it says 'Smith's 1905 publication scandalised the country' then you have to reference Smith's 1905 publication, so it needs to be included in references rather than further reading". This is in my opinion a good example of a candidate for further reading. The citation should not be to "Smith's 1905 publication" but to a source that says it "scandalised the country". Smith's book should not be used as a citied source, because it says nothing about scandalising the country. However for someone who wishes to go into the scandal in more detail, then more bibliographic details about Smith's publication would be useful and the place to put such details is in further reading. -- PBS (talk) 23:29, 31 July 2010 (UTC)
Further reading are supposed to be reading recommendations by the article authors, I see nothing wrong with that and no reason to block authors from creating such sections. True, at least in theory such a section could be abused for hidden advertising but that applies in the same fashion for references themselves, because you can favour/push certain publishers or authors there as well. Most references citing some textbook X could of course cite textbook Y instead (and often there might be 100s of Ys available for a particular article content). I'm rather skeptical of yet another rule for authors regarding how they have to name their sections and paragraphs or what information to compile.
As far as WP goals are concerned "collecting the knowledge of the world" does not mean that we collect any possibly interesting information on some subject. This should be obvious since we do not write textbooks on those subject but encyclopedic articles (containing the most important aspects in a concise and accessible manner)--Kmhkmh (talk) 00:36, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
- The problem may not arise with the authors discussing this topic! The problem arises with newbies who hurl a book they just read (or were forced to read) on a list without having any idea whether it is "classic" or simply a run-of-the mill textbook for beginners.
- If we don't like an entry, we frequently follow a web link to the site and find out what the link says. Most of the editors here know darn well that about 10% of the time, the link is either bogus or doesn't quite say what the article says (which is why the editor checked on it - didn't sound right). I'm not arguing against all print references - they can't be avoided. But the "further reading can be." Yes, some PhD or candidate, might be able to weigh in with a single inspired list. But most entries are (most likely) not in the "inspired" category at all. We just don't find out that they aren't. Student7 (talk) 13:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- Don't get me wrong, but essentially you arguing, we cannot have such a section, because others (well meaning but misguided or less well meaning spammers) might abuse it. That however is true for any WP section or the article as a whole, hence imho not really a convincing argument and definitely not a reason to block informed author for creating a well designed further reading section. But those sections in doubt need the same maintenance as other sections of an article, i.e. once in a while you may have to (re)check and clean out unwanted stuff, that was added later (carefully though). I agree that it can be annoying and it occasionally pisses me off as well with articles I'm watching/maintaining myself, however it is fundamental characteristic of WP and something we have to live with (to a certain degree at least).--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- In historical articles, we often have a short summary of a vast literature -- on World War II for example, or Abraham Lincoln or Napoleon. There are many thousands of books on each of these topics. Misplaced Pages is a good place to begin, but many users will want to move on, and use library collections or perhaps purchase their own copies. If they go to a library catalog, they will be presented with thousands of titles on the Napoleon, say, with no indication of the quality or usefulness or level of presentation. Misplaced Pages's "further reading" section is a short listing -- from 2 to 50 titles, depending on the length and complexity of the topic -- that allow the reader to move forward. Since college and local public libraries have limited collections, it is often useful to have enough titles so that a user is likely to find a few of them on the shelves.Rjensen (talk) 01:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- I somewhat agree and i support the principal option for such a section as well, however I slightly disagree towards its purpose/use, imho further reading is intended to be a short list of the most important/best suited reading suggestions on the subject, it is not meant to be an excessive list reading or even a bibliography, i.e. 50 titles are way too much, normally it should be rather single a single digit number or close to it. In other other words it is a quality not a quantity selection. If in some exceptional cases there's a need for very extensive reading list, I'd prefer to see that outsourced into its own article rather than blowing up the original article artificially.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:09, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- Agreed. For example, most of the articles in Category:Bibliographies by subject could be thought of as expanded "Further reading" sections, and are usually shared between multiple articles (thus preventing mass duplication). -- Quiddity (talk) 18:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- I somewhat agree and i support the principal option for such a section as well, however I slightly disagree towards its purpose/use, imho further reading is intended to be a short list of the most important/best suited reading suggestions on the subject, it is not meant to be an excessive list reading or even a bibliography, i.e. 50 titles are way too much, normally it should be rather single a single digit number or close to it. In other other words it is a quality not a quantity selection. If in some exceptional cases there's a need for very extensive reading list, I'd prefer to see that outsourced into its own article rather than blowing up the original article artificially.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:09, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- In historical articles, we often have a short summary of a vast literature -- on World War II for example, or Abraham Lincoln or Napoleon. There are many thousands of books on each of these topics. Misplaced Pages is a good place to begin, but many users will want to move on, and use library collections or perhaps purchase their own copies. If they go to a library catalog, they will be presented with thousands of titles on the Napoleon, say, with no indication of the quality or usefulness or level of presentation. Misplaced Pages's "further reading" section is a short listing -- from 2 to 50 titles, depending on the length and complexity of the topic -- that allow the reader to move forward. Since college and local public libraries have limited collections, it is often useful to have enough titles so that a user is likely to find a few of them on the shelves.Rjensen (talk) 01:46, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
- Don't get me wrong, but essentially you arguing, we cannot have such a section, because others (well meaning but misguided or less well meaning spammers) might abuse it. That however is true for any WP section or the article as a whole, hence imho not really a convincing argument and definitely not a reason to block informed author for creating a well designed further reading section. But those sections in doubt need the same maintenance as other sections of an article, i.e. once in a while you may have to (re)check and clean out unwanted stuff, that was added later (carefully though). I agree that it can be annoying and it occasionally pisses me off as well with articles I'm watching/maintaining myself, however it is fundamental characteristic of WP and something we have to live with (to a certain degree at least).--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- It would be a tremendous step ahead, if we can agree to limit the size of the list. Do I hear nine? Sounds great to me. The next editor would have to subtract one before adding her/his entry to the list. I like this. Most newbies aren't going to be able to prune the list. Only knowledgeable editors can (usually). This is doable. Student7 (talk) 13:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- is there a shortage of space here? The problem with a short list when dealing with a major topic in history is that it severely limits the usefulness to students. I have in mind high school or college students who want to do a term-paper for a class. The paper has to be on a narrow topic ("History of World War I" will not work). Usually the book has to be available in the library. I just checked a couple standard guides (Melvyl and "Historical Abstracts") and found over 1500 scholarly books and articles on the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England. A selection of 2% seems about right to get the student going. We should not omit journal articles--the better ones are immediately available to college students through academic libraries (which subscribe to JSTOR and similar), so that the student can start browsing right away. Rjensen (talk) 14:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Well your approach definitely has some merits, however there's the question, whether WP is the appropriate place for that. Extensive reading recommendations, that you would compile for a class or lecture on subject or for people interested in doing thorough research on subject are a bit out of place in an encyclopedia. Wikiversity or Wikibooks might be a more appropriate for that. Having such extensive reading lists would is imho not quite in line with the general spirit of the guidelines (WP:NOT and others) and the notion of many other editors of what WP should be comprise (traditionally encyclopedias do not have extensive reading lists). Of course one could argue to expand the scope of WP in that regard, after all WP is not paper. However such an expansion would have to be discussed and decided upon by the community at large. If the article's (main) author wants to add a short list of reading recommendations that's fine by current practice and guidelines. However if we are talking about compiling extensive reading lists and adding them to articles in general as you seem to suggest, that's imho not really covered by current practice and guidelines.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- is there a shortage of space here? The problem with a short list when dealing with a major topic in history is that it severely limits the usefulness to students. I have in mind high school or college students who want to do a term-paper for a class. The paper has to be on a narrow topic ("History of World War I" will not work). Usually the book has to be available in the library. I just checked a couple standard guides (Melvyl and "Historical Abstracts") and found over 1500 scholarly books and articles on the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in England. A selection of 2% seems about right to get the student going. We should not omit journal articles--the better ones are immediately available to college students through academic libraries (which subscribe to JSTOR and similar), so that the student can start browsing right away. Rjensen (talk) 14:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- It would be a tremendous step ahead, if we can agree to limit the size of the list. Do I hear nine? Sounds great to me. The next editor would have to subtract one before adding her/his entry to the list. I like this. Most newbies aren't going to be able to prune the list. Only knowledgeable editors can (usually). This is doable. Student7 (talk) 13:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nope. Further reading and External links are different, and should stay that way. If we have ELs and Further reading run together, they each will be much harder to control, leading to even worse problems with link farms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
- What I'm recommending is that "further reading" (which is common in most encyclopedias) should be a section that helps users who want to delve "further" into the topic. Speaking now just of history articles, the vast majority of these articles will have 1 to 4 items. However the big topics (like Napoleon or Lincoln or the world wars or Vietnam war) are very hard to students to grasp--the library catalog will have hundreds or even thousands of titles that are unselected--so our further reading list for major articles should have a couple cites for each main section. Rjensen (talk) 00:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think most editors would be fine with 1-4 items, but not with excessive list not even for larger articles. Again purpose of encyclopedic article is not provide reading lists for students and class rooms. If you take an article like Napoleon it suffices imho to provide a few important biographies on Nspoleon and may 1 or 2 to books on his era. If you look at different sections of the Napoleon article, you will see that they usually link to a separate main articles, which deal with those section topics in greater detail. Those main articles are the places where reading recommendations for section topics should go rather than in the Napoleon article itself.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- the primary use of encyclopedias for the last hundred years has been to help students in their studies. With the enormous proliferation of online sources, it is now more necessary than ever to help students. Forcing editors to choose the two most important biographies of Napoleon, is the formula for edit wars, controversy, ill will, and disservice to our readers.Rjensen (talk) 02:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Again, most of the articles in Category:Bibliographies by subject could be thought of as expanded "Further reading" sections, and are usually shared between multiple articles (thus preventing mass duplication).
- In this case, we already have a good section in the Good-rated article Napoleon I#Further reading. The larger view can be seen at Historiography of the French Revolution. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- I beg to differ, the primary use/goal of encyclopedias was never to support students in their studies in particular. The primary use of encyclopedia was/is to be a (general) knowledge reference work. And again Wikimedia has separate project such as Wikiversity to target students and the learning process in particular. Otherwise I agree with Quiddity, that if extensive reading list are created at all, they should be outsourced into their own articles.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:58, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- the primary use of encyclopedias for the last hundred years has been to help students in their studies. With the enormous proliferation of online sources, it is now more necessary than ever to help students. Forcing editors to choose the two most important biographies of Napoleon, is the formula for edit wars, controversy, ill will, and disservice to our readers.Rjensen (talk) 02:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think most editors would be fine with 1-4 items, but not with excessive list not even for larger articles. Again purpose of encyclopedic article is not provide reading lists for students and class rooms. If you take an article like Napoleon it suffices imho to provide a few important biographies on Nspoleon and may 1 or 2 to books on his era. If you look at different sections of the Napoleon article, you will see that they usually link to a separate main articles, which deal with those section topics in greater detail. Those main articles are the places where reading recommendations for section topics should go rather than in the Napoleon article itself.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:12, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- What I'm recommending is that "further reading" (which is common in most encyclopedias) should be a section that helps users who want to delve "further" into the topic. Speaking now just of history articles, the vast majority of these articles will have 1 to 4 items. However the big topics (like Napoleon or Lincoln or the world wars or Vietnam war) are very hard to students to grasp--the library catalog will have hundreds or even thousands of titles that are unselected--so our further reading list for major articles should have a couple cites for each main section. Rjensen (talk) 00:36, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- 1) Comparing us to a "regular"encyclopedia usually works and often in our favor. But, in this case, we are amateurs. A regular encyclopedia has paid scholars qualified to suggest further reading.
- 2) People have often suggested to me to "read" so-and-so. I often did (in the old days), then wondered why. Usually a waste of time and never covered my interests. Another reason, IMO, to limit size of list.
- 3) Students can use footnotes as a more valuable example of what to read. Those have often been checked and are clearly germane to the article. For controversial material, at least several editors agreed. Student7 (talk) 20:17, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
- Regarding 3): Footnotes are not reading recommendation but sources. Their purpose is merely to verify the content or a particular sentence or section, but that does not mean that the cited source is a recommendable literature on the article's subject or a good read for students. In many cases they are anything but a good read on the article's subject.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:06, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
I am now coming by this Manual of style talk page section after seeing a discussion on the talk page of a thoughtful editor about the rationale for and usefulness of further reading sections in Misplaced Pages articles. Most professionally edited encyclopedias have further reading references at the end of their articles. That seems to be a general characteristic of many of the subject-specialized encyclopedias that are acquired by academic libraries. Take a look around in the academic library reference section nearest you and see how many specialty encyclopedia sets you find. Then look at the articles, and observe how often an encyclopedia article in a dead-tree encyclopedia has a bibliography at the end of the article suggesting books readers could read for more information on the subject. The Misplaced Pages Manual of style section on the issue makes clear enough that this has been routine practice on Misplaced Pages for years as well. What I try to do when editing further reading sections is to put well researched, meticulously edited references into them as I discover those references, and then eventually (sometimes many months later) dig into those sections for sources for further edits of article text. Most of the 6,939,248 articles on Misplaced Pages need a lot more editing, but as far as I know most of us few thousand active editors are volunteers who are either working or studying full-time besides editing Misplaced Pages, so it's not surprising that not every possible edit is done at once. Listing a further reading source with an article, as long as it is a well chosen source, has immediate usefulness to every reader of the article (and some articles have hundreds of page views a day even while they languish with no edits for weeks at a time), and it has lasting usefulness to any other editor who surfs by and thinks "I could improve this article if only I knew of a source on this topic." On my part, now that I have gathered hundreds of sources published by major commercial or academic publishers, purchased by major academic or public library systems, I simply don't have time simultaneously to edit all of the hundreds of Misplaced Pages articles that could be edited on the basis of those sources. I have my particular priority list of articles to edit on my volunteer time between work and family responsibilities. It may be that other editors have fewer means for finding such sources, but more time to use such sources once someone else finds them, so that if one editor shares a reference to a source or sources in an article further reading section, then other editors can use their volunteer time productively updating the articles based on current, reliable sources. Division of labor helps everyone get more work done more efficiently. I have seen instances of further reading sections being spammed for political or commercial purposes, and I boldly delete sources from such further reading sections (which, fortunately, are not commonplace) if I find them. The main thing is to keep looking for reliable sources all the time that have usefulness for follow-up reading by readers of Misplaced Pages and eventually usefulness for editors editing Misplaced Pages. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:47, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- WeijiBaikeBianji has said it very well. One problem with this discussion is the contributors have very different pictures in their minds of the articles we are talking about. Just to limit the discussion to history, most history topics have only a few RS--maybe 2 or 3--and usually they will be the sources used by the editors to write the article and so be included already in the footnotes. As a rule of thumb for history articles, let me suggest one to three "Further reading" citations per 1000 words. That way, the great majority of history articles will have three or fewer suggested readings, while the long complex articles will have one or two suggested readings per articles section. other fields, such as the sciences, may well have an entirely different guideline.Rjensen (talk) 20:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- (A bit of context: WBB has actually been using further reading sections as a dumping ground for material he hasn't read yet and thinks should be used for sourcing. This includes books which mention the topic only a handful of times across several hundred pages, and causes some BLP concerns.) If there is to be a further reading section, guidelines should be clear that any editions should be centrally about the article topic. If it is a person, it should be a biography of that person. If it is about a subject, it should be a good introduction to the subject - a good place to start - not just any old book on the topic. It should not be a place to suggest extra sources for the text, which is precisely, by his own admission, is how WBB is explicitly using the section.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 23:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
- WeijiBaikeBianji has said it very well. One problem with this discussion is the contributors have very different pictures in their minds of the articles we are talking about. Just to limit the discussion to history, most history topics have only a few RS--maybe 2 or 3--and usually they will be the sources used by the editors to write the article and so be included already in the footnotes. As a rule of thumb for history articles, let me suggest one to three "Further reading" citations per 1000 words. That way, the great majority of history articles will have three or fewer suggested readings, while the long complex articles will have one or two suggested readings per articles section. other fields, such as the sciences, may well have an entirely different guideline.Rjensen (talk) 20:20, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Separate 'Notes' and 'References' sections
See Marco Polo's birthplace where I discovered this. Is this within the guidelines? And can a 'note' be to a tourist site that we wouldn't allow as a reference normally? Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 17:43, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- The Notes section in that article are explanatory notes, not references, which are listed in the References section; see WP:REFNOTE. A link to a tourist site would be places in the External links section, if it is directly relevant. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) 18:05, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
::Not really notes is a section for footnotes which can be either references or or explanatory notes. Some authors prefer to separate general references/sources for the articles as a whole from specific references/sources for individual statements, in such cases the specific references are in the notes sectionand the general references are in the references section.--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC) sorry prematurely saved while editing, see below for the intended comment--Kmhkmh (talk) 18:31, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- How do you get that from the guidelines? And are you saying you can use sources in 'notes' that you can't use in 'references'? That would blow a hole in one of our basic policies. Dougweller (talk) 18:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- Not a difference in reliability, a difference in citation style. Similar to "Further reading", except works listed there are not intended to verify article content. Skomorokh
- How do you get that from the guidelines? And are you saying you can use sources in 'notes' that you can't use in 'references'? That would blow a hole in one of our basic policies. Dougweller (talk) 18:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- I think that's more a matter of taste apparently here the author wants to visually distinguish between explanatory notes and "real" source citations. However other authors would probably lump them all together under a section titled notes or references. Yet other authors prefer to separate general references/sources for the article as a whole from specific references/sources for individual statements, in such cases the specific references are in the notes section and the general references are in the references section. So the use of those section varies slightly. Of course you cannot use that for smuggling in unwanted sources. However a tourist website is not an unwanted source per se, but it depends on what it is used for. You could certainly use it as primary source for the fact that croatian tourist industry claims Marco Polo being born on Korcula. Of course that comes with all the caveats that the use of primary sources brings along.-Kmhkmh (talk) 18:20, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- Have a look at Westcott railway station#Notes and references, which reached FA-class in May this year. The FAC crew would surely have complained. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm lost, the FAC crew is who exactly and pushing what format? As far as I'm concerned that article and the section titles are fine.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- The people who review all Featured Article Candidates. They don't push any one format above another; but they are picky about meeting WP:MOS. An article cannot attain FA-class unless they're completely satisfied. Basically: if they don't complain about the notes/references style in an article that's up for WP:FAC, there's nothing wrong with it. Westcott railway station made it through FAC with both notes-as-notes and notes-as-short-references, as well as long references, so its notes/refs style must be OK. --Redrose64 (talk) 21:28, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- I'm lost, the FAC crew is who exactly and pushing what format? As far as I'm concerned that article and the section titles are fine.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:36, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- Have a look at Westcott railway station#Notes and references, which reached FA-class in May this year. The FAC crew would surely have complained. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
- I've tried to mix true text footnotes with true in-line references before, both with <ref> xxx A</ref>. It was not a universally popular move with all editors. I thought it got rid of extra "stuff" that some might find germane, others not. The way Dougweiler has revealed, at least the two are separate, for whatever good that does. Frankly, I'd rather see them merged. Student7 (talk) 02:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nothing is or will be popular with all editors. If you want "notes" and "references" in one section just do so and if you prefer them separate sections just do so as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- I agree with Kmhkmh: The True™ citation presentation style is the subject of holy wars, and WP:CITE lets you do just about whatever you want.
- Student7, IMO the one advantage (only sometimes implemented) with separate sections is that you can change the appearance of the refs so that the reader knows which refs lead to explanatory notes and which to citations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- Nothing is or will be popular with all editors. If you want "notes" and "references" in one section just do so and if you prefer them separate sections just do so as well.--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:41, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
- I've tried to mix true text footnotes with true in-line references before, both with <ref> xxx A</ref>. It was not a universally popular move with all editors. I thought it got rid of extra "stuff" that some might find germane, others not. The way Dougweiler has revealed, at least the two are separate, for whatever good that does. Frankly, I'd rather see them merged. Student7 (talk) 02:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
See also include links to categories?
Folks, a question has arisen over links to categories in the see also section at Sequoia National Park. WP:SEEALSO doesn't specifically prohibit links to categories, but I've never seen them implemented and the text of WP:SEEALSO only refers to "articles," not any other kind of content. Links in a see also section are there usually because they haven't been included in the text (yet) in a reasonable way. I don't see how it would ever be necessary to include an internal link to a category within the text. The three categories mentioned above were (as styled):
- Category: Sequoiadendron - Giant Sequoias
- Category: Flora of the Sierra Nevada region (U.S.)
- Category: Fauna of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
Could anyone here clarify? How do you see the current wording of WP:SEEALSO applying to this situation? Could you see any reason to include see also links to categories? Any thoughts are appreciated. Rkitko 02:47, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- Generally not a good idea for obvious reasons, but not prohibited. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
- Why is it not a good idea? —hike395 (talk) 03:24, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- There is nothing wrong with linking to a category within a See also section (or even the body of an article) and this is not something that has ever been prohibited. For a simple inline link, prefixing with a ':' is sufficient:
]although sometimes piping the wikilink can be more aesthetically pleasing:]. Within the body or a section of an article, it is generally preferable to use one of the special purpose templates such as {{Category see also}}, {{Main category}}, {{Related category}}, etc when linking to categories. We also commonly link to Wikimedia commons categories in See also sections using templates such as {{Commons category}}, {{Commons category-inline}}, {{Commons cat multi}}, {{Commons and category}}, etc. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:26, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- There is nothing wrong with linking to a category within a See also section (or even the body of an article) and this is not something that has ever been prohibited. For a simple inline link, prefixing with a ':' is sufficient:
- I believe the Commons links typically go in the External links section. The category templates you mentioned are meant to be used on other categories to improve browsing ability, not to be used on articles, as far as I can see. I've never seen in-line links to categories within articles, whether it be in a see also section or in the body of the article. As I wrote on my talk page, I could think of a few reasons why such links wouldn't be the best idea:
- A link to a category leads the user to content that is not meant to be directly edited. A similar list article "see also" link may be appropriate where a category is not since the user is taken directly to content that has prose.
- Categories are meant for browsing related subjects. Categories cannot include extensive explanatory prose, nor can they include links to articles that don't exist, whereas a list of flora and fauna can include information on species Misplaced Pages does not yet have articles for.
- And finally, all links in the see also section are typically thought of as links not yet included in the body of the article. A "complete" article should not really need this section. So the question asked is would you include direct links to categories in the prose of the article? I don't see anywhere that you could or should. It would also likely be considered an WP:EASTEREGG link if piped.
- Cheers, Rkitko 15:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- Despite the slight misinformation in WP:LAYOUT#External links, Commons category linking templates are also used in See also sections. No, the templates I mentioned were not designed strictly for category navigation. See:
- I believe you might actually be thinking of templates such as {{Category pair}}, {{CatPreceding}}, {{CatSucceeding}}, etc which generally are used exclusively for category navigation.
To cite one of many such examples, it very much makes sense to link to categories such as say Category:Missouri State University alumni from Missouri State University#Notable alumni. I see nothing wrong with the category links you've removed from Sequoia National Park which followed a similar scheme and I'm beginning to feel that you may have come here with your mind already made up that such category links in See also sections were verboden. While the wording of WP:SEEALSO is certainly not ideal (and very much should be updated and refined to reflect actual usage), the wording as currently written includes the term "article" because historically that was the most common wikilink type associated with See also sections. There have been similar arguments in the past over linking to the Portal namespace (such as, but not limited to {{Portal}}) in See also sections. We also had major problems with well meaning editors removing links for Misplaced Pages:Books when that was first introduced (prior to the creation of the dedicated Book: namespace, when it still used the Misplaced Pages: namespace). I created the original {{Misplaced Pages-Books}} and {{Misplaced Pages-Books link}} templates after seeing a well meaning editor bulk remove several hundred Misplaced Pages:Books links from articles. Portal and Book wikilinks are usually not inline within an article, but are instead placed in an article's See also section. (That said, Books wikilinks are occasionally done inline or as a hatnote or footnote in a section within an article, when it makes sense to do so.) --Tothwolf (talk) 17:28, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- To be specific, the category templates you mentioned above certainly imply usage only in categories, e.g. {{Related category}} says "In most cases, Template:Related category should be used on both categories to create reciprocal linkage between the two categories" and is used for horizontal linkage among categories. And the "pragmatic example" at {{Category see also}} implies the template is used for easier navigation of sub-sub-categories that may not be apparent to users. I believe I was clear in my opposition to inline category links in a see also section. I came here looking for other opinions and more input since there was a disagreement at one article, and for clarification of the text at WP:SEEALSO. As I understand it, see also links are meant to be content, not navigation based. Why have links throughout the article to other content, then, if all you need to do is plunk a few links to categories in a see also section that contains all related content? Cheers, Rkitko 17:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- Wikilinks within the See also section are meant to enhance the reader's experience and to help the reader better understand the subject, which of course includes wikilinking to related material which the reader may find helpful. If a wikilink to a category which contains a number of related articles will help the reader find additional information, it should be linked.
There is also no hard and fast "rule" that topics which are already linked somewhere in the article itself should never be linked in a See also section. If a wikilink to a related topic is buried in a section of a large article, it can make sense to still include a link to that related topic in the See also section in order to make it more visible to a reader.
WP:SEEALSO explicitly states: "However, whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense" and "Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question."
Put simply, Misplaced Pages exists for the readers, not the editors. If it will help the reader to include a particular wikilink in the See also section, it should be included. If a wikilink would not help the reader, it should not be included.
Just because documentation doesn't always reflect actual usage doesn't mean that the way something is done is wrong. It often means the documentation needs to be updated. Since you mentioned template documentation above, template documentation in particular is often badly neglected and incomplete. Oddly enough, the See also sections commonly seen in template documentation often include wikilinks not only to other Templates and other documentation, but also wikilinks to Categories. --Tothwolf (talk) 11:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
- Wikilinks within the See also section are meant to enhance the reader's experience and to help the reader better understand the subject, which of course includes wikilinking to related material which the reader may find helpful. If a wikilink to a category which contains a number of related articles will help the reader find additional information, it should be linked.
- To be specific, the category templates you mentioned above certainly imply usage only in categories, e.g. {{Related category}} says "In most cases, Template:Related category should be used on both categories to create reciprocal linkage between the two categories" and is used for horizontal linkage among categories. And the "pragmatic example" at {{Category see also}} implies the template is used for easier navigation of sub-sub-categories that may not be apparent to users. I believe I was clear in my opposition to inline category links in a see also section. I came here looking for other opinions and more input since there was a disagreement at one article, and for clarification of the text at WP:SEEALSO. As I understand it, see also links are meant to be content, not navigation based. Why have links throughout the article to other content, then, if all you need to do is plunk a few links to categories in a see also section that contains all related content? Cheers, Rkitko 17:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- I believe the Commons links typically go in the External links section. The category templates you mentioned are meant to be used on other categories to improve browsing ability, not to be used on articles, as far as I can see. I've never seen in-line links to categories within articles, whether it be in a see also section or in the body of the article. As I wrote on my talk page, I could think of a few reasons why such links wouldn't be the best idea:
- It's generally not a good idea because categories are used for navigation, not information. There would need to be some kind of reason why you'd direct a user to meta-information like a category. Generally because a good overview article doesn't exist and should. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
Links to categories like {{commonscat}} are definitely useful, however personal I'd rather place them under External links section, although they are sister project they are nevertheless logically external, since the sister projects have their set of rules and agendas and are not controlled by the WP community as such, despite a significant overlap. The See also section should only contain links to other WP articles.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:50, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
- We are also discussing internal links to Misplaced Pages categories too though. In actual practice, the See also section contains not only internal wikilinks to other Misplaced Pages articles, but also internal wikilinks to Portals, Books, etc, and when it makes sense to include them, internal wikilinks to Misplaced Pages categories.
For Commons categories, actual practice has been to place templates such as {{Commons category}} in the External links section if it is already present, but if a populated External links section is not present and a See also section exists, {{Commons category}} is instead placed in See also. The reverse also holds true for floating box templates such as {{Portal}}, {{Misplaced Pages-Books}}, etc. If a See also section does not exist but a populated External links section does, then such templates are typically placed in the External links section. This makes sense in that you otherwise end up with a more cluttered user interface due to unused section headings that only have a floating box template in them. --Tothwolf (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
- Well is see no point to essentially place it External links unless it is freely floating. Arguing if External links does not yet exist put it under See slso makes little sense, there is no problem with simply adding the External links along with adding a category. As far as internal categories are concerned I rarely see a scenario where this would be useful, in most cases the article belongs to associated categories anyway and the article needs to cattegorized rather than adding a category link under See also. In the few cases where it actually deems useful to an editor to add an internal category link under See also, he should just do so. In don't think we need a special regulation for that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
The Category:Flora of the Sierra Nevada region (U.S.) was recently created and populated by me. I also did the edit, that is being discussed here, placing it and the Category:Fauna of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.) links under ==See also== in the Sequoia National Park article. I've seen this cat. > link done for the readers' benefit in other Protected areas' articles, in the U.S and abroad, that have a meager or non-existent natural history section or are without any directly specific independent flora/fauna articles.
To date the flora/fauna sections in the present Sequoia National Park article are very under-developed for readers interested in learning more.
Regarding the links' sufficient specificity to Sequoia National Park questions:
If one opens the specific articles in Category:Flora of the Sierra Nevada region (U.S.) and then under ==External links== opens the " Jepson" or "USDA" links there are: range maps - Jepson very detailed by ecoregion-habitat and USDA by counties; and descriptive geographic text. To not rely on the original research of personal experiences I opened those before adding to those articles when populating the cat. and a preponderance have ranges including Sequoia National Park's various elevation determined plant habitats. These Cat:links do not go to a species Easter egg hunt in a mega-category. This is specifically why, for the readers' benefit which surmounts the editors' general category link and style standards-preferences, that these two "see also" links do belong in this park's article.
I respect the many editors' time to consider and express their views, insights, and knowledge of wiki-style and policy resources on this topic. If I'm understanding correctly, a See also > category link is to be used only with reticence after deliberate consideration.--Thank you--Look2See1 t a l k → 18:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
Notes and References main article gone
The Notes and references section of Layout says:
Main page: Misplaced Pages:Citing sources § How to present citationsBut that link is no longer valid and Citing sources doesn't seem to talk about layout anymore. Is it there and I am missing it? If so, please update the link. If not, did this information go into some other article? If not, should we discuss it here? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:12, 25 September 2010 (UTC)
- Anybody out there? Here is where the text in question disappeared: http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages:Citing_sources&diff=next&oldid=386694138 Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:49, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
- I suggest that you ask SlimVirgin directly why she made that choice. It might well be that she had no idea that we were relying on the link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
- Sorry, I just saw this. Is there something that needs to be restored? SlimVirgin 01:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
- My thought is that it needs to be somewhere. Frankly, it looks more like a subject for Layout rather than Cite. But, to keep the articles from conflicting, Layout has historically deferred to Cite. If Cite is going to drop that content then I think we should put it in Layout. What do other editors think? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:45, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
- It's still in CITE, it's just that that particular section was repetitive. SlimVirgin 22:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
- Can you give me a # link to the section within Cite that has the info? Maybe it will just be a simple matter of changing our "main article" link to that location. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:39, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
- It's still in CITE, it's just that that particular section was repetitive. SlimVirgin 22:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
"See also"s linking to categories
It seems implicit in the statement, but editors have been adding category pointers (with a bit of effort! :) to 'See also" subsections, instead of creating a separate article (list). Should this be explicitly banned? Student7 (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
- I'm not convinced that this is always a bad idea, especially for cats whose contents don't lend themselves to a reasonable length of a list. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
Lille Comics Festival
Can someone fix the layout in the Lille Comics Festival article? The EL section is in between the section heading for the Location table and the table itself, even though in edit mode, it's not. I don't know how to fix that. Nightscream (talk) 10:11, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Done The stray '-' in the '|-}'at the end of the table was the cause. --Tothwolf (talk) 10:59, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
Etymology
I noticed that Etymology sections are often the first section after the lead. I assumed this was common but am not seeing anything in the MoS. An editor has suggested moving the section to the end of the article since it seems like trivia. I disagree but didn't want to push it if I am incorrect about past precedent. Any thoughts? The article in question is Bukkake (not work appropriate).Cptnono (talk) 22:41, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
- The most common style, is to give a sentence fragment definition after the first usage, and then expand upon the etymology in the first section. See Australia and Saffron and Rongorongo and Narcissus (plant) and Vulva (NSFW) for some examples. Of the pages I looked through, only BDSM has the section lower down, and I think it is unhelpful all the way down there (although it is especially large).
- Afaik, there's no recommendation anywhere in the MoS, it is simply common format for it to be one of the first sections. One reason that section often appears so early, is to give the reader more context as to the word that they are about to read numerous instances of. Eg, at herpetology, it helps to introduce the notion that herpeton originally meant "creeping animal" in Greek, fairly early in the article, so that this nuance is in the back of the reader's mind as they read the rest.
- At the article that you're asking about, I think having the etymology early helps to reinforce the original meaning of the word, and is more likely to get across to the reader that the word has mundane uses in Japan, and is only appropriated for the purely sexual meaning in other countries.
- HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 03:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Question
If there is no External links or Further reading sections, should there be an empty line between {{Reflist}} and a navbox for readability when editing? McLerristarr | Mclay1 01:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- Here is one solution, not universally accepted. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:32, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- That's an unusual approach, but it has been used in a small number of articles, e.g., this one. It apparently creates problems for the WP:1.0 team's offline copies, so I wouldn't recommend it for an article that you expect to be included (a combination of higher quality rating and higher priority).
- A blank line is a simple solution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
I suggested adding a blank line below {{Reflist}} at WP:AWB/FR but I was asked if it is actually policy to do that. Is there any reason not to add a blank line? McLerristarr | Mclay1 05:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- I have no problem with readability without a blank line and the use of forced blank lines is discouraged. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)
- Subject to someone correcting me, I think that it is fair to say that there is no policy prohibiting or requiring this. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:34, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
- And consequently, enforcing it through an expansion of AWB is probably not the right approach.
- If you personally think that a given page would benefit from an extra blank line, then feel free to add it. But let's not standardize on that for all articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)
List order variant?
From the end of WP:LSC:
- When the list includes a short introduction and a longer list, it may be advisible to include a "See also" section, that shows related lists and articles, after the introduction and before the list.
Is this a good idea? Has anyone seen this done? Do we need to accommodate that variant layout here? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
- Good idea? I'd say the concept is good but, perhaps, we should recommend to the editors of that article that they change "See also" to "Related lists" or something similar. Seen it done? I haven't. But then I'm not much of Misplaced Pages list voyeur. Accommodate here? My vote would be "no." Except, perhaps, to say somewhere that "The rules in this guide may not apply to specialized articles such as, for example, articles that are stand-alone lists." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:16, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
- I agree with that analysis, and cannot recall any examples of the idea in practice. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:12, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
How about we just take it out of LSC, and thus provide no advice (anywhere) on the point? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
Annotations
The following section is currently in Misplaced Pages:Scientific citation guidelines
When referring to one or more textbooks or reviews it can be very useful to give a brief annotation for each entry which indicates the level and comprehensiveness of the reference. In this case, it may be helpful to maintain separate "Notes" and "References" sections, with the Notes section containing the annotations and the References section the full formatted reference. For example:
- In cosmology, the cosmic microwave background radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation discovered in 1965 that fills the entire universe.
It is also possible to provide annotations in other ways: by including them in the references section itself or by including everything in a footnote. If an annotation is particularly long (more than one or two sentences), it may be appropriate to merge some of the information into the main article instead of placing it in an annotation.
There is an ongoing discussion on the talk page there and the general feeling seems to be that the section does not belong there since it's not really about citations (annotation is not referencing) or science. I'd like to propose that the section be moved to this guideline since it's really layout issue. I'd also like to propose the following edited version since in it's current form it's confusing and the example does not illustrate what I think are our best practices.
When an article lists a large number of sources or materials for further reading then it is often helpful to annotate each entry with a brief indication of the type of work it is (beginner, advanced, detailed, survey etc.). For example:
- J. Smith, Introduction to Linear Programming, Acme Press, 2010. (An introductory text.)
- D. Jones, Linear Programming Theory, Excelsior Press, 2008. (A rigorous theoretical text for advanced readers.)
--RDBury (talk) 20:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)
References
- Dodelson (2003) is a modern textbook which contains a comprehensive derivation of cosmic microwave background physics. Liddle and Lyth (2000) and Mukhanov (2005) are other modern textbooks. Kolb and Turner (1988) is a dated but classic textbook. Peebles (1993) gives a comprehensive overview of cosmology and useful remarks and references for the history of cosmic microwave background physics. Hu and Dodelson (2002) is a recent review. Wayne Hu's website contains a variety of useful introductory material targeted at different levels.
- Why isn't this at WP:CITE? This might be listed as a practice, but not a guideline. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) 17:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
- Huh? WP:CITE is also a guideline. Tijfo098 (talk) 21:09, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
- Why isn't this at WP:CITE? This might be listed as a practice, but not a guideline. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) 17:28, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
I'm not enthusiastic about the word "often" in "often helpful to annotate". Sometimes it's self-evident what audience the further reading stuff is for, e.g. newspaper articles or scientific journal papers have an obvious audience. So, just having a large number of further reading entries doesn't seem sufficient to recommend annotations. Tijfo098 (talk) 21:15, 26 November 2010 (UTC)