[WikiEN-l] Scale of online resources, was Re: Rating the English wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

On 02/17/11 2:54 AM, WereSpielChequers wrote:
> Even if the online resources didn't improve, and we could really do
> with a big improvement in parts of the developing world, as long as
> the Internet continues to be updated we can expect a steady flow of
> new articles. Sports, Politics, popular culture and science are all
> going to generate new articles for the foreseeable future.  We
> currently have half a million biographies of living people, assuming
> we keep our current notability standards and coverage levels, then to
> keep that number stable  we can expect at least ten thousand more each
> year. So even without filling in the historical gaps there will be a
> steady increase in the total number of biographies on the pedia.
> Large gaps in our coverage of people who retired pre-Internet are
> slowly being filled in from the obituary pages, and that could
> continue for decades. Every year there will be new films, books,
> natural disasters and sports events.  So if we still have an editor
> community to write them, we can expect a steady flow of new articles.
>
I missed reading this thread when it was active, but my own estimate of 
what still needs to be done in historical biographies alone is quite 
high.  For most of its 177 years of publication "The Gentleman's 
Magazine". provided a steady diet of obituaries. If it averaged 1000 
pages a year that's well over 170,000 pages of material.I now also have 
the first 60 years of "Notes and Queries"; it was the kind of 
publication that a 19th century Wikipedian would have loved to work on. 
It includes all sorts of fascinating oddball material.  "Who's Who" was 
followed by "Who Was Who" for deceased persons, but there were also more 
narrowly focused versions for different places, and different subject 
areas. Out of curiosity I looked up one surname in the Spanish language 
"Enciclopedia universal illustrada" Of the 30 persons with that surname 
enwp only had articles on 2, eswp only 1. What do we do with such things 
as the drawings of the proposed new gaol at Bury-St. Edmonds in the 
August 1801 issue of "The Gentleman's Magazine"? (Does it even still 
exist?)  Then there's the endless stream of books that were reviewed in 
a wide range of 19th century periodicals.  The reviews themselves are as 
worth reading as the books, because they often contrasted a number of 
publications around a chosen theme.  An estimate of 20,000,000 English 
Wikipedia articles seems increasingly conservative.  The amount of work 
to be done is enormous even without having to fight with the notability 
police.

Ec