Image via Wikipedia
At first the Wikipedia let pretty much anyone contribute. But it has become apparent that Wikipedia is pretty much limited itself to trying to be an encyclopedia complete with all works being able to site references.
So what is wrong with this. Nothing if your aim is to be an encyclopedia.
But their is a limit to this in that it does not allow for the creation and addition of new information, ideas and concepts.
So what is wrong with that? That is easy to show with a couple of historically significant works.
1. Charles Darwin "On the Origin of Species" was published without references.
2 Albert Einstein's papers had few or no references in many of his papers. For example "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" has footnotes but no references or citations. published in June 30, 1905 would be unexceptionable for Wikipedia. This paper was published as part of Einstein's 1923 book "The Principle of Relativity"
So much for the value of original thought.
