[WikiEN-l] Rating the English wikipedia

[Newyorkbrad]

I think Charles is right about this.  There is a common conception, or
misconception, that stubship or start-class-ship is just a way station on
the way to articlehood.  But some articles are probably destined to remain
short, or at least, can remain short without their
shortness reflecting poorly on the project.  I don't know if there are any
statistics, but I am sure that the Britannica (for example) has at least as
many one- or two- or three-paragraph articles as lengthier ones.

It may be that the wording of the stub template fosters this reading.  "This
article is a stub.  You can help Wikipedia by expanding it."  Often, of
course, but perhaps not always.

Newyorkbrad






On Mon, Feb 14, 2011 at 4:23 AM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> On 14/02/2011 03:35, Ian Woollard wrote:
> > I think you can't take the simple percentages of articles, a lot of
> > the most important and well visited articles are pretty well sorted,
> > whereas the stubs are mostly articles few people go to.
> While this discussion is worth having, I wish to record a view, now long
> held, by means of a metaphor. Wikipedia is an omelette, not scrambled
> eggs. Because of the intrinsic use of of hypertext, taking WP to be (in
> the large) a collection of articles is always a distortion. If the "few
> people" who go to a stub are just those who would refer to a
> corresponding footnote in a book, the system as a whole is functioning
> as it should.
>
> Charles
>
>
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