David Alexander Russell wrote:
Nothing to do with the fact that Britannica Online has
about 100,000
articles and the English Wikipedia (Britannica's direct competitor) has
over a million?
Out of all figures, the raw number of "articles" (including those pages
which are in namespace=0 and lack any attribute of an article, such as
lists) is the worst and most ignorable number. EB.com's 100K are
shrinking to some 20.000 "articles" when you look at what's online
without subscription.
Out of this 20K, there are stubs, substubs and subsubstubs.
Some of the more veteran internet users might be able to remember the
Britannica Online desaster when their business plan collided with reality.
If any, an Wikipedia that accepts fancruft and unverifiable information
about the unreleased demo tape of a gothic band that stopped to exist
before releasing any other medium as a single article should not start
to see large numbers of articles as a sign of quality.
Mathias