[Wikipedia-l] Average Size of Articles and Article Size Evolution

[David Levinson]

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.

They are like people in this respect, people are born small and grow 
up.  Unlike people (hopefully) they don't die.  So while the average 
article size may drop, that just indicates more young articles.  Each 
article is likely larger than before (unless it is split into multiple 
articles, or slightly tightened by editing - going on a diet so to 
speak).

If we could have a graph/table (from the people who have access to run 
queries)

Something Like
Creation Month /Average Size/Number of Articles Created
  Jan 2001   N2  150
Feb 2001 ....
....
Sep 2002

I suspect (hypothesize) that the older articles would be longer, the 
younger articles would be shorter. Maybe this would resolve some of the 
fears about quality.

Second, looking at some of the smaller articles (e.g. Wallace 
Harrison), I suspect he warrants the size of stub he gets given the age 
of the project, it is a longer article than Encarta (which is 0).  The 
EB article is of course longer, but they have over 200 years on us.

David Levinson
levin031 at tc.umn.edu