[WikiEN-l] Rating the English wikipedia

[Ian Woollard]

On 15/02/2011, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 February 2011 16:19, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yeah, really. That page claims we only have 3% of notable Poles. Are you
>> really, seriously, telling me we only have 3% of ALL notable
>> biographies???
>> Because that's what that page is assuming to calculate that 40 million.
>
> It's possible. Our coverage of say British MPs starts to fall apart
> pre-20th century.

But should each MP necessarily have his own biography?

>> It's not impossible to calculate, you look at the counts from an
>> encyclopedias of famous people. And they very typically list historical
>> people as well as living people.
>
> But they all hit dead tree limitations.

Then they're not capable of being reliably sourced.

> Sure you can chose a very
> narrow focus book like the alphabet of the saints. So it seem pretty
> likely that up until 1992 Southampton FC had a bit over 700 players
> about which it would be possible to write something about. But such
> books don't really exist for far areas.

Then there's no sources, and no biography.

> Still assuming players play for an average of 2 clubs (remember
> players didn't used to move around as much) you are looking at about
> 28 000 english male football bios up until 1992.

Only if they're notable, and reliably sourced. I don't think they're
notable enough to have their own article simply for having played.

> But how many captains of the royal navy are notable? How many knights?
> Mayors?

Indeed.

> So while yes it may be possible for some individual areas as to how
> many bios there could be more generally I don't think can be done.

So you're saying that you don't know; and it's not a lot of use is it?

> --
> geni

-- 
-Ian Woollard