Hi all, sorry if this does not thread properly, already erased orginal message. Oops! Sorry about the duplicate to list-admin.

I think I sort of inverted Jimbo's methodology and took 10 random pages from Wikipedia and then compared to the search results in the encyclopedia category at xrefer.org, if no hits were found there then I searched all categories. In some cases I searched for closely related links accessible links in stubs.

results (my tally at the bottom):

1. Montgomery

Wikipedia OUCH! Disambiguation page. Mainly on named locations, 86 U.S. locations, 18 counties, a couple of history facts about people places are named after.

xrefer.org over 50 hits mostly on:

a. Montgomery, Bernard Law 1rst yada yada WWII General of Eighth Army 1 paragraph "The Oxford Paperback" (top) 6 concise paragraph biosketch - The Macmillan Encyclopedia (tmme) 1 page biograhy - Who's Who in the Twentieth Century: Oxford University Press (wwtc)

Wikipedia 6 short paragraphs, about the same as (tmme)

Wikipedia in the low middle of the pack.

b. Montgomery, Alabama - Confederacy capital, first capital of Alabama, civil rights incidents

xrefer.org 1 concise paragraph - Oxford Paperback Edition (ope) Oxford University Press

1 concise paragraph - (tmme) slightly different facts

No hits on counties or cities other than Montgomery, Alabama.

Wikipedia Bunch of County and City Stubs ranging from 500 bytes to 2500 bytes, most need work.

Wikipedia wins on breadth but needs work in all articles.

c. Montgomery, Lucy Maud Poet

xrefer.org Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Woman (pbdw) One paragraph citing several works

Wikipedia One concise paragraph followed by list of all works.

Wikipedia has more information.

Call this article a tie with Wikipedia in the lower middle of the pack. Started with one apple and ended up comparing three oranges and grapefruit.

2. choir

Wikipedia Excellent article. A candidate soon for brilliant prose. Has some hooks for further information. Excellent work lately by Koyannis Quatsi and Tbackstr

xrefer.org (tmme) one paragraph stub (others) one line definitions

Wikipedia wins this one, hands down.

3. substantia nigra

Wikipedia

Technical definition stub, links to slightly better stub dopamine.

xrefer.org No hits on substantia nigra 12 hits on middle brain, nothing directly equivalent

Wikipedia scores on breadth, still needs work to be an adequate technical medical dictionary or encyclpedia. Unless, of course, nothing is known of midbrain, which I doubt.

4. Seamus Heaney

Wikipedia 3 short (1-2 sentence) paragraphs, sketchy bio.

xrefer.org 1 paragraph Oxford English Reference Dictionary (oerd) 1 paragraph (ope) 1 paragraph (tmme) 2 long paragraphs (wwtc)

xrefer - My impresssion was that two xrefer.org were at least slightly better and a couple were better than Wikipedia.

5. Netherlands Cabinet Balkenende-1

Wikipedia This crashed my Win98/Nav 4.7 3 times, once after reboot.

In mozilla, it is an excellent informatative article providing lots of information. Recently relocated from Politics of Netherlands it appears to be election and subsequent organization results of the Netherlands governing bodies. Excellent supporting article for Politics of Netherlands.

xrefer.org No hits on Netherlands Cabinet Balkenendre-1 6 hits on Netherlands Politics, all historical figures 7 hits on Netherlands Elections, 15th-18th century

Wikipedia scores, at least against the search engine at xrefer.

6. 1058

Wikipedia 2 events, 2 deaths, (priests and kings)

Looked sketchy till I played with the links, Very nice! Not quite a time machine but quick temporal browing! 8)

xrefer.org (tmme) and (ope) have several kings, priests and/or poets in one liners that Wikipedia does not. I have notes and this shall be easily rectified, until then however ....

xrefer.org scores, Wikipedia lacking some detail, at least under the date index .... I did not search for the information direct. Still, the links are missing if the info is not, legitimate hit.

7. Free Convection

Wikipedia Stubby definition with link to a fair one page article on convection.

xrefer.org Not hits on "free convection" Convection yields two one paragraph definitions in dictionaries.

Wikipedia, say one half point?

8. Kamov

Wikipedia Stubby definiton of a company with links to good helicopter and aircraft articles. External link to russian company web site available in English yields yummy photos and specifications.

xrefer.org No hits on Kamov

3 hits on "Russian Helicopters" All on Russian born American helicopter designer Sikorsky.

No hits on "russian helicopter manufacturer"

Wikiipedia scores on breadth. Unless someone deletes this stub before it fleshes out. Notice one link adjacency to good portal articles .... spare this meagre beginning fellow sages, I beseech thee.

Sorry, back to work.

9. Margaret II of Denmark

Wikipedia Very poor stub, birth and ascension of currently reigning monarch.

xrefer.org "Margrethe II" comes up from search Penguin Biographical Dictionary provides 3 paragraph biographical sketch. Concise but many particulars.

The Mcmillan Dictionary of Women's Biography 1 long paragraph, better than Wikipedia's stub.

Wikipedia takes a hit on depth and detail.

10. Illyrian

Wikipedia

Stubby technical definition linked back to Illyria which is 7 paragraph, 10-12 sentences total history stub with many links. Pretty good factual presentation but looks and feels sketchy. Also has links to modern Albania and Bosnia.

xrefer.org

One paragraph, about same quantity of information as Wikipedia. No internal links. Oxford English Reference Dictionary

2 ext links Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia 2 sentence stub (tmme) 6 sentence stub.

I give the edge to Wikipedia.

Tally ho!

Wikipedia has articles as good or better than xrefer.org resources ..... 7.5/12

xrefer is as good or better than wikipedia.org .... 7/12

Of course we scored a few cheap ones outside of xrefer.org's stated scope. Still, not bad for a project in progress. Results similar to Jimbo's but letting Wikipedia pick the topics switched the edge. I look foward to seeing other peoples' homework. 8)

Regards, Mike Irwin

P.S. I shall of course be doing some fact checking, entering and editing with the careful notes resulting from this exercise. A quantum here, and an essay there, it all adds up.