>>35Wikipedians assume everyone can afford to buy rare books and pay for research papers. If someone would want to really read the references of a dozen articles they would need to shell enough bux to buy a new hi-end computer.
Also the referenced part is often a charter or even a few pages in a huge document/book.
C standard would be adhered by more people if it was free to use(and no these people don't bother searching free draft pdfs).