Talk:History of foreign relations of China

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26 August 2019

Necessity of "further reading" and "external links" section? edit

As I write, we cite over 100 references in the body of the article. In light of this, are the further reading and external links sections necessary? My view is that if it is important enough a source to list, it should also be sufficiently important to cite in the article's text. I'd like to delete these sections which seem superfluous. Are there other opinions on this matter? JArthur1984 (talk) 02:07, 5 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

First, JArthur1984, much gratitude to you for taking on the sprawling accumulation in this article, with hopes that you keep up the work. The "further reading" and "external links" are especially sprawling and I sympathize with the urge to cut them. But your request for "other opinions" appeared less than a week ago, and the vague edit summary did not draw attention.
I agree that these sections are not very helpful, but readers do need them. They are far more usable than the equally if not more random accumulation in the notes. The essay Wikipedia:Further reading seems sensible. So I suggest restoring a cut down version of Further Reading, maybe at most a dozen titles, with short annotations. How does this sound?
Cheers and Happy New Year (Chinese) in any casech (talk) 17:34, 10 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

Likewise to you!

Your suggested alternative is sound and agreeable to me. JArthur1984 (talk) 18:39, 10 January 2023 (UTC)Reply