Talk:The Princeton Companion to Mathematics

Invalid access codes to external site?

The access details: Username “Guest” and Password “PCM” of the website mentioned seem to be invalid. I also wonder: do the wikipedia guidelines allow links to external pages that require a password to view? JocK (talk) 02:28, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

It works. Use proper capitalization. The guidelines are only against it if that password is really secret, e.g. given to paid subscribers etc. In this case, Gowers has publicly made the password available. --C S (talk) 02:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

ridiculous overreferencing

Why does the completely uncontroversial lead need 10 references when one or two would suffice?--Kmhkmh (talk) 14:40, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Because it's a convenient place to collect a list of all the reviews (or almost all, there's one missing there and cited later). —David Eppstein (talk) 15:29, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

I see. However in such cases (first collecting all relevant sources in one place while writing the article), it might be better to move them as named references into the reference section. This way you still have them in one place while writing without cluttering the lead. Alternatively could compile them all into one reference for the lead (in cases where they are not cited independently later on).

In any case imho the current approach is rather unfortunate for the average reader as the article is visually rather cluttered and that many references in one place may mislead the reader to believe that there was some controversy or issues with the article. In addition the reader may not realize/recognize that references provide a review collection unless he reads all references anyhow.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)