User:MarylandArtLover
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I'm interested in visual artists, primarily artists from Maryland. I especially concentrate on biographical and critical articles about such artists.
[edit] The importance of sources, quotes, and links
Let's face it: many people are wary of Wikipedia articles because of Wikipedia's openness to all contributors. That is the main reason why I am very keen on using lots of quotes, sourced in-line (even if it obstructs the flow a bit), and lots of external links and book sources, and providing external links to Worldcat's "Find in a library" service for all books cited (where possible).
[In fact, I would respectfully suggest that Worldcat links (where possible) for book sources should be standard practice for all Wikipedia articles.]
We who write for Wikipedia cannot expect our readers to take our articles as authoritative oracles in the old-fashioned way that people used to believe anything that appeared in the sacrosanct volumes of Britannica or Worldbook.
But what a Wikipedia article can be — rather than an oracle — is a central locus for gathering, coordinating, and creating a coherent narrative out of information that is so thoroughly and transparently sourced, in a user-friendly way, that any reader can easily check the important assertions in the article and quickly conclude that the article is at the very least solid enough to be taken seriously as a useful guide and starting point for one's own research and analysis.
[edit] Knowledgeable help appreciated
By the way: the only one of my contributions I would consider pretty well finished at this point is the Jane Frank article; I only tweak it slightly on occasion nowadays. The others are very much works in progress. In particular, I would appreciate any (well-sourced) help in improving on the Elaine Hamilton and Alton Tobey articles.
[edit] Translation into French requested
Would anyone out there like to translate the Jane Frank or Elaine Hamilton articles into French, to be posted on French Wikipedia?
