How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Step back, think a minute about that question.
If there was some magic way to immediately have each and every deserving article that was and could be written from what *you*personally* consider reliable sources (currently, as of this instant, extant ones), that was verifiable...
...all that, and furthermore could _in_theory_ be maintained NPOV by the tender loving care of an infinite, nay transfinite, number of shallowing eyes, and could (again, in theory) be written encyclopaedically, even if the only one with the necessary expertise happens to be an illiterate but dedicated self-pigeonholed expert...
...in short if all the natural restraints of raw manpower and human limitations of ability were for one instant magically extinguished, but what only remained was the standards you think wikipedia should set itself, now, at this time, with the sources we have and the knowledge already contained in them...
...then; I ask you what is the number of articles you think wikipedia should have? A billion? 4 million (over twice we have now)? 20 million? What?
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 23/05/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
...then; I ask you what is the number of articles you think wikipedia should have? A billion? 4 million (over twice we have now)? 20 million? What?
Every census habitation in every country, every politician of at least state/province level in history, every drug, every useful or once-useful chemical ... 20 million sounds like a start. And that's not even letting in pop culture at all. I could be wrong and it could be a lot more.
- d.
On 0, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com scribbled:
On 23/05/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
...then; I ask you what is the number of articles you think wikipedia should have? A billion? 4 million (over twice we have now)? 20 million? What?
Every census habitation in every country, every politician of at least state/province level in history, every drug, every useful or once-useful chemical ... 20 million sounds like a start. And that's not even letting in pop culture at all. I could be wrong and it could be a lot more.
- d.
As always, one of the classic pages in this vein to read is [[User:Piotrus/Wikipedia interwiki and specialized knowledge test]] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Piotrus/Wikipedia_interwiki_and_specialized_knowledge_test): "There are about 2 millions articles in need of translation from non-English Wikipedias, and more then 400 million of specialized topics in need of creation. Wikipedia is just in its infancy..."
-- Gwern Inquiring minds want to know.
How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Considering topics worthy of articles are being created all the time, the number of articles we should have is unlimited. As for how many articles we should have at this exact moment... probably in the billions. Certainly more than 20 million - we could probably reach that just on places.
On 5/23/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Considering topics worthy of articles are being created all the time, the number of articles we should have is unlimited. As for how many articles we should have at this exact moment... probably in the billions. Certainly more than 20 million - we could probably reach that just on places.
This page, hosted by the Smithsonian, says the number of insect species alone is estimated anywhere from 2 to 30 million. [http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/buginfo/bugnos.htm]
The Encyclopedia of Life hopes to list "all 1.8 million known plant and animal species". [http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/58.html]
So that would get us started way beyond the ~2 million we have now.
Erica
I can't even start to estimate the number of articles we should have if everything is magically maintained, but it should contain at least all known biological organism, planets, stars, famous people and geographical places. I'd say 60 million is a careful estimate.
MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
I can't even start to estimate the number of articles we should have if everything is magically maintained, but it should contain at least all known biological organism, planets, stars, famous people and geographical places. I'd say 60 million is a careful estimate.
Don't forget schools.
Ec
On 5/23/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Why don't we start covering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Encyclopedia_topics then list all broken links, write these articles, rinse (merging, deleting and redirecting), repeat.
Once there are no broken links anymore (typos become redirects) we will know the exact number :-)
Magnus
On 5/24/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 5/23/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Why don't we start covering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Encyclopedia_topics then list all broken links, write these articles, rinse (merging, deleting and redirecting), repeat.
Is there a list or tally of all red links ?
-- John
On 5/24/07, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On 5/23/07, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
How many articles _should_ Wikipedia have?
Why don't we start covering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Encyclopedia_topics then list all broken links, write these articles, rinse (merging, deleting and redirecting), repeat.
Is there a list or tally of all red links ?
No, but you can get them for a category, N deep, by "wantedness": http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missingtopics.php
Magnus
On Thu, May 24, 2007 7:33 am, Magnus Manske wrote:
Is there a list or tally of all red links ?
No, but you can get them for a category, N deep, by "wantedness": http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/missingtopics.php
Magnus
If my history isn't failing me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedpages
...should be the page for the list of redlinks. I assume it's a huge server drag at this point, but talk about a useful resource we're missing out on.
-Jeff
On 5/24/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedpages
...should be the page for the list of redlinks. I assume it's a huge server drag at this point, but talk about a useful resource we're missing out on.
"The following information is cached, and was last updated 04:23, 1 December 2006."
I'm sure that's by design, but couldn't that be at least once per month...?
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com
This and some other special pages, like Special:Ancientpages and Special:Deadendpages are simply no longer updated, for technical resource reasons.
On 5/24/07, Joe Szilagyi szilagyi@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/24/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Wantedpages
...should be the page for the list of redlinks. I assume it's a huge server drag at this point, but talk about a useful resource we're
missing
out on.
"The following information is cached, and was last updated 04:23, 1 December 2006."
I'm sure that's by design, but couldn't that be at least once per month...?
Regards, Joe http://www.joeszilagyi.com _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l