[WikiEN-l] There are no pictures in Wikipedia any more

[Angus McLellan]

On 10/1/07, Angus McLellan <angusmclellan at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni <geniice at gmail.com> writes
> > On 01/10/2007, Earle Martin <wikipedia at downlode.org> wrote:
> > > On 30/09/2007, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > 2)Literacy levels. India has a literacy rate of a bit under 70%
> > >
> > > Out of a population of 1.14 billion [1], that leaves us a mere 798
> > > million people. Of whom (if we take a na?ve view and assume literacy
> > > as a prerequisite) some 65 million speak English as a second
> > > language... [2]
> > >
> > > > small pool to do the writing
> > >
> > > ...and over forty million of those people have access to the internet. [3]
> > >
> > > I don't think we're going to be short of willing writers any time soon.
> > >
> > Not our writers. Writers to write the local history books. Writers to
> > write the detailed history of every train used on the Indian lines
> > ever. Writers to write books on local football and cricket teams.
>
> There are 22 million books in the National Library of India. Over 25%
> are written in Indian languages. The library receives copies of 902
> newspapers and 17000-odd periodicals, and has over a million volumes
> of bound periodicals. [ Source http://www.nlindia.org ]
>
> And do the states have state libraries with manuscript and periodical
> holdings? Well, Andhra Pradesh does, even if the library doesn't yet
> have a website, so quite probably they all do.
>
> Anyway, you were saying?

A minute after posting this, McLellan realises that the "millions"
comma is lakhs, not millions. Oops.

Still, given the number of articles an enterprising Wikipedian can
write from one book, the NLI should be good for umpteen million
articles, and the periodicals should be good for millions more. And
when those are done, there will be tens of thousands more books and
journals published to write another huge heap of articles.

Angus