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(a)tc.umn.edu