[WikiEN-l] Rating the English wikipedia

[Charles Matthews]

On 15/02/2011 18:17, Ian Woollard wrote:
> 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?
>
Arguably the answer is "yes", back to the 16th century at least. There 
has actually been quite a lot of havoc onsite over stub MP biographies 
during the past year, but it transpires that there are pretty good 
sources back to 1660, and usually adequate sources in the century 
leading up to that (if you work at it). The ODNB took a decision not to 
include all MPs (it says somewhere, in terms that suggest that it was a 
decision that did at least require a moment's thought). Some parliaments 
of Henry VIII are apparently lacking lists of MPs, but after then it 
seems like a good use of WP to collate this information.

Charles