Macbeth/Talk

Is this full-text reproduction really worthwhile? How about providing a link to Project Gutenberg, as is done for A Modest Proposal? This doesn't seem appropriate for an encyclopedia, especially when there is already a working and well-established project dedicated to this sort of activity. -- MattBrubeck

Personally, I believe it is worthwhile. I'm in favour of adding selected, relevant primary sources to Wikipedia (such as The Origin of Species), not duplicating the work of Project Gutenberg. Eventually, I would like to see Wikipedia evolve to a point where, if a passage is discussed in an article, one click will bring up the relevant work so that it can be read in context. Of course, if no one else agrees with me, I won't get many sources in anyway. ;-) -- STG

I wonder why external links are any worse than putting whole-text into Wikipedia? If the model really IS an encyclopedia, this is the other end of the "Wikipedia is not a dictionary" statement. Is Wikipedia a whole library? --MichaelTinkler

As someone who tried to add some texts, there are some caveats:

• There is a size limit on edited pages. At least one Shakespeare play wouldn't be accepted as a whole.
• Project Gutenberg has good mirrors. Let them take the load for big files, so link to their mirrors page.

I do believe that short texts, like "Modest Proposal" and Casey at the bat are worthwhile additions, though, since they can be digested almost as part of the article. -- GWO