2009/2/23 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad(a)gmail.com>om>:
I'm not familiar with the details of the data dump
process, so I can't
comment on whether it's broken or not.
It's broken, I don't think there is any dispute there.
However, one question that I have is whether the dump
includes, or should
conclude, all namespaces, or only articles. In the past, there have
allegedly been instances in which database dumps have been utilized for
purposes such as harvesting oversighted edits in userspace and utilizing the
information for purposes of harassment. I am not sure whether there is
value to providing dumps of other than the content spaces. Comments?
If you want complete statistics, you need all the information. It
might be interesting to see how the ratio of edits to non-article
namespaces to total edits varies over time, for instance.