--- David Levinson <dlevinson(a)mn.rr.com> wrote:
People have been tracking the average size of articles
as a measure
of content quality. The problem has been that the average size has
been dropping (or leveling off). I think there is a missing element
to this debate. Each article, as it ages, presumably tends to get
longer as people add content. New articles start small. People add
facts, they get larger. They spawn incomplete links[?] and new
articles are created, but start small.
Right, I think that is precisely the point. When I say that median
article size is holding steady, I don't imagine that half of the new
articles created are above the median size and half are below. Instead
I imagine that for every two new small articles which are created, one
article which used to be small has been expanded to be above the median
size.
Of course the reality is more complex, because there are useless
articles being deleted, mature articles being split, etc. But the
basic question I am trying to get at is whether Wikipedia is becoming
more and more stubby. Are we creating dinky articles faster than they
are being fleshed out? Have we gotten so focused on the headline
article count that we care about quantity more than quality?
If the median article size is stable, I draw the tentative conclusion
that the quality is holding steady. It is evidence that the balance
hasn't tipped away from deep, polished content too far in the direction
of broad, shallow content.
By the way, I'm stunned at the current rate of addition of articles.
We crossed 40,000 less than 72 hours ago, and now have over 40,600.
That's more than 200 articles a day! And it hasn't been a stub-fest
either: over those three days the median article size actually climbed
from 990 bytes to 993 bytes. Some of this comes from splitting huge
articles (e.g . The Alps) into several articles that are each above the
median, but I think most of it comes from the natural evolutionary
process by which new short articles get older and longer.
I don't want to be ridiculously optimistic about our pace, given that
this is a long weekend and people have to get back to work and school,
but just dreaming for a second... 200 articles a day times 120 more
days in the year puts us at 64000 articles by year end!
Peace,
-Karl
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com