Carcharoth wrote: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:1911_Encyclopedia_topics > "The only remaining task on Variation and selection is integrating > references, probably to their own authors' pages. That page is still > up for historical interest and to finish small amounts, but for all > intents and purposes, this article is merged. I'm taking it off the > 1911 list, and thus declaring the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica to be, > at first draft level, merged into Wikipedia. Ladies, gentlemen, and > algorithms, it's been an honor. Alba 15:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)" > > Impressive! How long did that take, I wonder? > It was of course a grossly overconfident statement. My latest EB1911 find was [[William Mure (writer)]], all of nine days ago. We have learned (I hope) that the dab factor - i.e. false-positive bluelinks in your list of articles - is something that has to be made more central to the merging effort. Compare the DNB missing articles project and how it is set up . (OK, OK, I know I have mentioned this before.)
As for verifying EB1911 text, it can and should be done piecemeal. I found a case today where A. F. Pollard, a very respectable historian, seemingly made a slip in the DNB that transmitted to the EB1911; and I only noticed it by comparison with another DNB article. My "over-checking" theory says: - Yes, you should try to provide inline references where possible, for chunky copy-paste jobs; - but you should approach this as building up the article with further, verifiable facts; - and what usually happens is that you find errors and inconsistencies either because unverifiable facts eventually look like islands in a see of footnoted facts, or because the sources for the new facts indicate that something strange is going on. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l